


,K'<. 







4,'^^ c ° ^ ^ -f ' 



.V -^ 












^o>°" 






' ^3 ,^- ■ 



/%, IW/^/ ,^^ : 



oO^ 



"^,. v^ 











■0' v^ 



o 0' 



.^; 

















X 



^ K-^ A 






•^^ A^ff^j?^' ■" %, ^-^^ .'^ < 



^-^.•^ 



./V 






m 






'^^ * ', ., o ^ -0- 









* ,^.!,^^,Xv 







4lC^ 






.^■% %ilr''^ 










'V'^-s^ ^b 



^■^ '^ v^ 



•0' X 



.Oo. 
















'\^ '^. -; ^ 



, ,. -^^ A 







c^. X ' 



■'^^^ ,^^^" 



^ 



m^ o .^ 



*#^ X .SI.' 



'i^ -^^ = 






.y^^ -^t 



-0' 






H -A 



.0 o 



^V ./> 






V ;iK|: ^^- 



, «* 






THE 

DRAMATIC INSTINCT 

IN EDUCATION 

BY 

ELNORA WHITMAN CURTIS 



A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of 
Clark University, Worcester, Mass., in par- 
tial fulfillment of the requirements for the de- 
gree of Doctor of Philosophy, and accepted 
on the recommendation of G. Stanley Hall. 



BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



THE 

DRAMATIC INSTINCT 

IN EDUCATION 

BY 
ELNORA WHITMAN CURTIS 



A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of 
Clark University, Worcester, Mass. , in par- 
tial fulfillment of the requirements for the de- 
gree of Doctor of Philosophy, and accepted 
on the recommendation of G. Stanley Hall. 



BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



.Cs' 



\^\-^ 



COPYRIGHT, I914, BY ELNORA WHITMAN CURTIS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSBTTS 
U . S . A 



) 

) 

TO MY PARENTS 



PREFACE 

A SMALL portion of this book was first given to 
the public as a tentative study, under the same 
title, published in the Pedagogical Seminary (1908, 
vol. XV, pp. 299-346). 

Many of the subjects treated under the chap- 
ter headings were then far less in the public eye. 
Six years ago only the first of the playground 
congresses had been held; story-tellers' leagues 
and clubs in town and city were exceptions 
rather than the rule; dancing was utilized far 
less than at present, in schools and other institu- 
tions; and pageantry, in its modern form, was 
not yet introduced into this country. Also, con- 
ditions affecting public amusements were less 
subject to scientific investigation. The delay 
in publishing has, however, had its advantages. 
The subjects have now become matters of popu- 
lar knowledge and interest. 

An effort has been made to present the dif- 
ferent phases in which dramatic instinct finds 
outlet, and to unify the many ordinary forms, 
perhaps unrecognized until brought into psy- 



PREFACE 

chological relation with those more commonly 
understood as its expression. 

The book is a plea for the intelligent compre- 
hension and immediate application of principles; 
the purpose is to stimulate by suggestion here 
and there, rather than to give formal rules. The 
author hopes that it may prove of use and inter- 
est to teachers, giving them greater insight into 
the needs of pupils and the value of uncurric- 
ularized forms in which such needs may find 
expression; also that it will appeal to persons 
interested in social betterment. 

Thanks are due to school principals, teachers, 
library assistants, and others too numerous to 
mention individually, who have rendered kindly 
assistance during the course of the work; but 
to the late Mr. Walter Small, Superintendent 
of Schools in Providence; the late Herr Direktor 
Ferdinand Kleinwachter, Berlin; Dr. D. P. Mac- 
Millan, Director of the Psychological Labora- 
tory of the Chicago public schools; and Dr. Louis 
N. Wilson, Librarian of Clark University, special 
acknowledgment is due. To the late Dr. Theo- 
date L. Smith, of Clark University, I am deeply 
indebted for much kindly assistance; and in the 
final preparation for the press, to Miss Czarnom- 
ska, my former professor at Smith College. To 
vi 



PREFACE 

President Hall I wish especially to express my 
gratitude for his unfailing interest and encour- 
agement. 

E. W. C. 

Clark University 



I 



CONTENTS 

Foreword. By G. Stanley Hall xi 

I. Introductory i 

II. The Theater-going of Children ... 5 

III. Psychological Aspects of Dramatic En- 

tertainment 25 

IV. Dramatic Work in Schools and Colleges 38 
V. Constructive Efforts to Provide Good 

Drama 60 

VI. Play 91 

VII. Dancing no 

VIII. Story-telling 135 

IX. Moving Pictures 153 

X. Marionette or Puppet Play 176 

XI. Pageantry 196 

XII. General Summary and Conclusions . .217 

Bibliography 225 

Index 241 



FOREWORD 

The dramatic instinct has innumerable outcrops 
in childhood and youth, and the present seems 
to be the psychological moment for its apprecia- 
tion and also for its utilization in education. 
What is it? More generically it is the propensity 
to express the larger life of the race in the indi- 
vidual, and more specifically, to act out or to 
see acted out the most manifold traits of our com- 
mon humanity. Thus no agency of culture is 
more truly or purely humanistic. The child is 
vastly older than the adult and also more generic 
and a better representative of the species, and 
growth and progressive individuation at best 
mean the specialization of some but the repres- 
sion of other and more racial traits. Children and 
youth, feeling unconsciously the *' shades of the 
prison house" closing in upon them, often ask, 
**Why am I just I?" and often feel and say, "It 
is tedious and monotonous to be just myself,'* 
"Why must I always and forever be just Johnny 
Jones? " And so in their sportive moments they 
fancy themselves other real or imaginary persons 
xi 



FOREWORD 

or perhaps animals to supplement their own 
narrow limitations of time, place, duration, and 
occupation. In the kindergarten they fly like 
birds, hop like frogs, go on all fours like quad- 
rupeds, and mimic perhaps every creature, per- 
son, and vocation they know, and thus find en- 
largement and relief. The animal epos in the 
Middle Ages appeals to this stage of growth, for 
to the child animals are the embodiments of 
human traits. The fox, lion, snake, wolf, eagle, 
peacock, bear, goose, pig, raven, and many more 
are made the embodiments of single human 
qualities isolated and writ large; and in this 
primary stage of psychology to know is to get 
away from self, and to be and to act out other 
t3^es of individuality. Here, too, are taught the 
first lessons of practical morality in terms of the 
life and characteristics of man's older animal 
brethren. 

Then comes the stage of getting into rapport 
with traits embodied in extreme if often cari- 
catured forms of human impersonation. In this 
repertory are the sot, who is always and only 
drunkenness embodied; the miser, who does 
nothing but hoard and count his gold; and so 
the hypocrite, coward, hero, wooer, saint, martyr, 
spendthrift, boor, fool, rowdy, slattern, prig, 
xii 



\ 



FOREWORD 

bulldozer, braggart, bookworm, ne'er-do-well, 
and all the vast and varied partial components 
of human nature, the one-quality personages, 
illustrating the elements that enter in our poly- 
morphic nature which children so keenly appre- 
ciate and which exist in all the myth, romance, 
story, drama, and which are themselves truer 
to life than life itself because factors are dissected 
out or shown in the most unrepressed form. It 
is the stage that in this way, perhaps best of all, 
holds up the mirror to nature and helps the 
child's growing self-knowledge, and thus moral 
and social philosophy are dramatized. 

The dramatic instinct in children, so long 
ignored, is just beginning to reveal its poten- 
tialities. It makes for widened sympathies, in- 
creased power of appreciation, keeps the sutures 
of the soul from closing prematurely, and so 
augments docility and prolongs its nascent 
period. We have here great possibilities of 
psychic and moral orthopedics. If a dirty child 
is set to act the part of a fastidiously clean one, 
a rowdy that of a gentleman, etc., this sets up 
compensating and corrective agencies, as the 
records of the Children's Educational Theater 
abundantly show. On the other hand if a child 
acts the bad part, this may start the higher 
xiii 



FOREWORD 

cathartic activities by releasing the next superior 
power that represses the bad inclination. This 
may occur when a child has to assume a role 
that brings out only a little more emphatically 
its own predominant faults instead of their op- 
posites. Which of these methods is most effective 
is one of individual diathesis. All the effects of 
acting are brought out, if to a less extent, by 
seeing plays. Again, the more we know of the 
child soul, the clearer it is that for it doing is a 
better organ of knowing than is merely intellec- 
tual learning. 

Rousseau first, and more emphatically and 
in far greater detail child study later, have 
brought us a progressive realization that repres- 
sion is the tragedy of childhood, and that its 
spontaneities are its salvation. Sedentary book 
work is the most unnatural and yet the most 
extensive constraint ever inflicted upon the ris- 
ing generation, and is now happily yielding to 
better methods. Play, dancing, story - telling 
and hearing, the moving picture and pageantry 
and the theater are perhaps nearer to the inmost 
nature of children than anything else; and the 
clear, up-to-date, temperate presentation of 
these themes contained in this book should be 
known to every intelligent parent and teacher, 
xiv . 



FOREWORD 

It ought to be on the lists of every reading-circle, 
for it cannot be too emphatically said that this 
is the psychological moment for just these things, 
and every one of them has a future far greater 
than its past would suggest. Pedagogical danc- 
ing cadences the very soul and gives poise, con- 
trol, freedom, and is far and away the best form 
of bodily culture. It exhilarates, can represent at 
least symbolically about every activity of all that 
lives, in a way genetic psychology is just beginning 
to realize. Play recapitulates the most essential 
characteristics of all our human forebears and 
also anticipates nearly every active occupation 
of man. Story-telling is the original form of all 
education and has transmitted all that we call 
the traditions of mankind. Nothing else so knits 
up all the component elements of the soul into 
a unity, and is so effective against dissociation 
or disintegration later, which is the chief form 
of psychic decay, all the way from puberty on, 
because the focalization of so many acts and 
persons contributes toward the one denouement. 
The power to use this charm is perhaps the very 
best single test of the teacher, born or made, 
that could be devised, while the possibilities of 
the moving picture appear to mark an educa- 
tional epoch of hardly less significance than the 

XV 



FOREWORD 

invention of printing itself. Pageantry best 
unites the old and young and all social classes, 
revives interest in history, creates local pride, 
breaks down prejudice, and gives a community 
both self-knowledge and self-respect. The Chil- 
dren's Theater, as begun by Mrs. Herts Heniger, 
conducted solely for the education of the chil- 
dren themselves, with every professional influ- 
ence excluded, which is such an effective school 
of morality; the Schiller Theater, in which all 
the school children in a great city who have ob- 
tained a certain, not too high mark, in the school 
study of plays, ancient and modern, can see and 
hear them performed by the best actors in a muni- 
cipal theater; the Cooper Union plan, by which 
some scores of thousands of subscribers can 
attend at half price plays, if only approved by 
institute censors, and which has thus made the 
success of not a few good and suppressed 
some bad plays; the almost pathetic enthu- 
siasm with which the Morris dances were lately 
revived in England because they teach and 
vitalize the past in much the same way that the 
arts and crafts movement inaugurated by Wil- 
liam Morris and Ruskin did; the remarkable 
playground movement, that has perhaps brought 
more of the joy of living and indirectly helped 
xvi 



i 



FOREWORD 

the morals and health of the children in the 
country at large more than any other one move- 
ment; and the motion picture, that has brought 
more recreation to more people than anything 
else in our generation, and on the whole with 
ethical uplift and with a great wealth of infor- 
mation — these are the focal themes of this 
book. 

With our nearly half a million teachers, and 
nearly half a billion dollars annually expended 
for education, and with enough pupils of school 
age to make a continuous row, allowing each 
only a foot, from the northeast corner of Maine 
across to the southwest corner of California, it 
would be strange if the new extension of educa- 
tional ideas and methods herein contained 
should not contribute something for the im- 
provement of this greatest system of education 
the world has ever seen. 

The writer of this book is competent and has 
spared no pains or expense to be authentic. She 
has been abroad repeatedly and has seen nearly 
every institution and most of the leaders who 
conduct them, personally, in quest of her ma- 
terial; but even were she less competent, the 
theme itself ought to make her book in a sense 
almost privileged. I wish I had written it 
xvii 



FOREWORD 



myself, and I shall watch its reception with | 
peculiar solicitude as symptomatic of a general 
interest in a subject which has so long been near 
my heart. 1 



G. Stanley Hall. 



THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT 
IN EDUCATION 

I 

INTRODUCTORY 

The dramatic instinct is a prime force in civili- 
zation; the need to give vent to pent-up emotion, 
to express joy of living, to put in material form 
the ideas that vex his spirit, has driven man to 
imitate, to create. Primitive peoples have satis- 
fied this need in songs and pantomime-dances; 
the Egyptians and Assyrians by the powerful 
action of their temple bas-reliefs; Orientals by 
puppet performances and story- telling; ancient 
Hebrews by religious dances and grandly dra- 
matic odes; the Greeks by religious processions, 
out of which came the drama, essentially as we 
have it now. 

Civilization restrains and suppresses the volun- 
tary expression of emotion that seeks outlet in 
these various ways. But it cannot be wholly 
stifled. The restraints of social life become at 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

times too irksome to be endured. Man feels the 
need to throw off the ''burden of civilization'' 
and seeks excitement and emotional experience, 
sometimes in the mere satisfaction of morbid 
curiosity; as, for example, in witnessing accidents 
and executions, in attending funerals, taking 
part in revivals, etc., and particularly by theater- 
going. This is the response to a need and desire, 
felt everywhere and in all ages — the desire to 
feel what others are feeling, "to get experience 
by proxy, to get the enjoyment of borrowed pain, 
to put into practice the Aristotelian principle 
of Katharsis." All this, so true of man, is still 
more true of the child and youth, alive with sur- 
plus energy, possessed by a craving for excite- 
ment, seeking always for something new. 

Able leaders of men have always attained their 
ends by a more or less conscious exploiting of 
the dramatic instinct. It has been more or less 
unconsciously used in the training of children. 
Recently, as an outcome of the new enthusiasm 
for child-study, there has appeared in many 
schools, as well as in settlements, boys' clubs 
and public playgrounds, a conscious effort to exer- 
cise and develop it. It is time that this new 
movement, which apparently has come to stay, 
should be put on a sound psychological basis, 



5 



INTRODUCTORY 

and that the mistakes which vitiate it should 
be noted and made impossible for the future. 

The present work aims to show the need for 
such a movement, the work that has already 
been accomplished, the natural origin and age- 
old value of the methods employed, and to draw 
a few conclusions that may be of immediate 
service. 

It was not formerly customary to study seri- 
ously, in relation to educational problems, the 
emotional needs of children. Before Rousseau, 
little attention was paid to the psychology of 
feeling. Froebel's work made an epoch in the 
encouragement of self-expression in the child; 
since when, educators have shown an increasing 
tendency to consider the claims of the emotional 
nature, as well as those of body and intellect. 
The trend of modern opinion on this subject is 
well expressed by two of our educational author- 
ities. President Hall says: that the sentiments 
constitute three fourths of life; that teachers 
should be made to feel themselves guardians 
of emotional sentiment; that as the education 
of the past has been of the head, the education 
of the twentieth century will be of the heart. 
And President Eliot tells us: that the child is 
governed by sentiments and not by observation; 

3 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

and that acquisition and reasoning, material 
greatness and righteousness, depend more on 
the cultivation of right sentiments in children 
than on anything else. 

In the awakening and deepening of such sen- 
timents, the utilization of the dramatic instinct 
is of inestimable value. This utiKzation is of 
two kinds: active and passive, or receptive grati- 
fication. When it urges the child to his mimic 
play, and the artist to his finest creations, it is 
active gratification. But it is also satisfied by 
vicarious experience; and this may be called its 
passive form. Under these heads we may classify 
the subjects treated in the following chapters. 
Play, dancing, story-telling, and participations 
in any kind of acting belong to the first, and 
mere attendance at any staged performance, 
moving pictures, puppet-play, or real drama, 
to the second. These are the tools by which 
teachers and settlement workers are proposing 
to utilize and direct the ever-present dramatic 
instinct, and thus to guard the emotional nature 
and educate the heart of the child. 



II 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHH^DREN 

That the child's emotional sentiment, his love 
of self-expression, is strong, that he longs to see 
a show and to take part in one — to imitate 
either unconsciously as spectator, or consciously 
as actor or creator — finds countless illustrations. 
It may be noticed any day in his eagerness to 
see a fire, an accident, or a street parade, and 
by his attempts later to imitate much that he has 
witnessed. Nowhere is the craving for passive 
gratification more strongly manifested than by 
his love of attending theaters. Throngs of chil- 
dren attend regularly and exult in experiences 
utterly unsuited to their needs or powers of 
comprehension. Teachers and settlement workers 
have long realized this, but only recently has the 
general public been awakened to the extent to 
which this need of the child has thus been seek- 
ing satisfaction. In fact, the excessive indul- 
gence of the theater-going habit among children 
is of comparatively recent date. Nor is the rea- 
son far to seek. Whereas a few years ago tickets 

5 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

cost twenty-five or fifty cents apiece, admitting 
the bearer to the top gallery and more or less 
questionable company, or to standing - room 
only, the same amount or sometimes a mere 
fractional part of it now pays for the best seat 
in the theater. The vaudeville show has worked 
its way up to comparative respectability, and 
was from the start more reasonable in price than 
even the cheapest melodrama. Moving pictures, 
at first a part of the vaudeville, have now come 
to be independent entertainments. There has 
been an increase in the number of stock com- 
panies in different cities, small as well as large, 
due possibly to the competition of vaudeville 
houses and nickelodeons with legitimate drama 
and melodrama; for, the expenses of the road 
being ehminated, plays can now be produced 
in the smaller places at lower rates than was 
possible a few years ago. Thus different forms 
of dramatic entertainment have been brought 
within the reach of the poor man, and no 
longer rank either for himself or his family as 
luxuries. 

Other reasons for the increase in theater- 
going are that through immigration our popu- 
lation has now a larger percentage of people of 
Latin blood, naturally more vivacious than the 
6 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

Saxon, and that shorter working - hours give 
greater opportunity for recreation. 

Not only has the theater ceased to be an 
event in the life of the adult, but the same is 
true of the child; so that if it claims fewer hours 
than does the school, it is nevertheless exerting 
a more subtle though scarcely less powerful 
influence. Certain events and more or less recent 
investigations have brought out startling dis- 
closures. Only a few years ago, when in New York 
the law was enforced which prohibited children 
under sixteen unaccompanied by parents from 
patronizing theaters, eighty out of eight hundred 
and sixty theaters which had moving pictures 
were closed in one week. They were frequented 
at the time by from three to four hundred thou- 
sand people daily, seventy-five thousand to one 
hundred thousand of whom were children. Ac- 
cording to some authorities, the theater for chil- 
dren in this country has become a veritable pas- 
sion and even disease. In Boston it has been 
found that nearly all children between the ages 
of ten and fourteen attend theaters of one variety 
or another occasionally, and that not less than 
ten per cent go as often as once a week. 

Some of the investigations by special com- 
mittees of various civic organizations have taken 

7 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

the form of theater-visiting in order to ascertain 
the hygienic conditions, character of material 
presented, age and general appearance of chil- 
dren attending, and the effect of the entertain- 
ment as shown by remarks overheard or deliber- 
ately brought out in conversation. In others, 
they have used the questionnaire method, and, 
through teachers, children of different schools 
have been examined as to their theater-going. 

As the result of an investigation of the latter 
type in Worcester, Massachusetts, made by the 
Public Education Association, it appeared that 
four fifths of the nearly five thousand children 
between the ages of eight and fifteen interrogated 
were theater-goers, about one half the number 
attending once a month or oftener, while some 
went as often as once a week. Of over seven 
hundred grammar-school children examined in 
Providence, Rhode Island, aged nine to seven- 
teen, two thirds were in the habit of going to 
theaters. Many children could not remember 
how often they had attended, saying, ^'Too 
many times to count"; while others professed 
to have been twice a week, weekly, bi-weekly, 
and even nightly. In Chicago, an investigation 
of nearly five hundred children between the ages 
of eight and sixteen showed a theater attendance 
8 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

of almost precisely similar proportion to that of 
Providence. Girls and boys were examined in 
nearly equal numbers. Theater attendance on 
the part of the boys was somewhat in excess; 
though, where afternoon performances, as in 
Chicago, were patronized to greater extent than 
were the evening, the difference was less marked. 
Though quite a large number of children said 
they were accustomed to going with older people, 
many went with young companions; and a con- 
siderable number, chiefly boys, said that they 
went alone. 

As for material presented, while classic and 
standard plays and old-time melodramas were 
among the number witnessed, the greater part 
was of highly sensational character, and while 
not absolutely immoral, was coarse, inartistic, 
and uneducational, if not distinctly detrimental, 
in influence. Though mention was made of 
Julius CcBsar, Hamlet, and Faust, and of the 
better sort of romantic dramas, such as When 
Knighthood was in Flower, as also of a few 
plays that entertain and at the same time im- 
press valuable truths or lessons, most, judging 
by names, were of a cheaper order, such as 
Lottie, the Poor Sales -Lady, The Hired -GirVs 
Millions, and Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak-Model. 

9 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

Uncle Tain's Cabin, however, was a prime favor- 
ite, and other especially popular plays were The 
Night Before Christmas, Tony the Boot -Black, 
His Last Dollar, Convict ggg. Two Orphans, and 
The Time, the Place, and the Girl. 

Answers to questions as to what was liked in 
the different plays brought out the fact that 
a large class of children were undiscriminating, 
either from confused memory or lack of descrip- 
tive ability. A large proportion failed to offer 
comments on what they had seen, saying they 
had *' forgotten," or ''Hked it all." Of those who 
did discriminate, by far the larger number of 
both girls and boys liked special scenes; next in 
preference came tricks and juggling (the choice 
of a number of boys but of few girls) ; then ^' things 
that were funny"; then the performances of 
trained animals; and lastly, details that had 
aesthetic value, which appealed to few of either 
sex. 

In the special acts or scenes mentioned, the 
exciting or emotional led. Shooting and killing, 
train robberies, "thundering" and racing-scenes, 
all appealed strongly to both girls and boys, and 
in some cases a liking for the morbid was mani- 
fest. "I liked best, the shooting of the Indians"; 
"Where the Monkey-man escapes, and when he 

10 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

fights with the villain and kills him''; "I like 
where they gamble for the girl"; ^'I like where 
the man kills his wife"; and similar verdicts 
abounded. A few showed a taste for the myste- 
rious and a large number for the melodramatic 
and pathetic. "I Kked where the Man Monkey 
said, *And if you shall kill me, the secret shall 
die with me' "; ''I liked the ghost [in EamletY'; 
*'I liked where Annie went out into the storm"; 
''I liked where little Eva went to heaven"; "I 
liked the part where the young lady dies" were 
characteristic repHes. Preference for music and 
dancing was shown, but without detail, as in 
"I liked singing, playing on instruments and 
dancing"; "I liked the singing"; " I liked Robin 
Hood because they had fine music"; and appre- 
ciation for the comic was also expressed, but in 
general terms, no attempt at analysis being 
made. *'I liked it because it was funny" was a 
more common form of expression. Animal per- 
formances were commented upon more in detail, 
indicating that this interest is of a somewhat 
deeper nature than that aroused by some of the 
other forms of entertainment. With the fev/ 
children who showed aesthetic appreciation, state- 
ments were vague, on the order of ''I liked the 
scenery"; "I liked it because it was pretty"; 
II 



f 

DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

while the purely romantic affected few but the 
older pupils. 

In general, it may be said regarding prefer- 
ences that the comments showed the normal 
tastes and interests of children of the ages under 
question as well as the usual sex-differences; girls 
liking more the serious plays, though showing 
the same Hking for thrilling and exciting episodes 
and situations as the boys. 

Following the Worcester investigation, teach- 
ers in two of the pubHc schools on the east side 
of the city were asked to have pupils write essays 
on what they had seen and Uked at theaters. 
One of the papers is given here verbatim. It re- 
pays a reading. 

THE NEAPOLITAN'S REVENGE 

{Seen in Moving Pictures) 

At a table in a yard sat a man and woman talking. 
On a doorstep sat a small boy playing. The costume 
of the woman is a shirt-waist and a square piece of 
stiff cloth on her head from which fell a long thick 
veil. The man had tights and a wide girdle. Soon 
he went into the house and brought out a decanter 
and glasses. As he went in a man came and handed 
her a letter, which, as her husband came out she 
thrust into her bosom, but it slid out and when they 
12 



I 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

finished drinking she went into the house and the 
husband went off. The boy found the letter which 
dropped and his father took it away from him and 
read it. The letter read as follows: "Dear Solo: 
meet me on the rocks to-night. Lovingly, Ran- 
dolph." 

Scene 2. A field along the seashore, with a man 
standing near the water. The man's costume was 
an overalls turned up to the hips. 

Soon the woman whom we had seen in the yard 
came and he went to help her. They walked all 
around and finally came to a round, high and large, 
such as we see in deserts. Here he attempts to kiss 
her face but she won't let him, so they go on. 

But! we have not noticed the third man who has 
followed them all the way and heard all they 've 
said; who is he, and what has he in his hand? In 
his hand he has a dagger and he is her husband. But 
they are out of sight, where have they gone? Here 
they are just entering the home owned by him whom 
she has run away with. She brushes her dress as he 
on his knees makes love to her. Who is following 
still? Her husband. He goes in after the culprits. 
He forces a dagger deep into the man's heart and 
he lay on the floor writhing in pain and the husband 
takes a long rope and binds his wife to the chair so 
she can hardly breathe. He then takes clothes, straw, 
the lace draperies and soon the beautiful mansion was 
in flames. The man goes home, his son runs away. 
What joy has he now? 

13 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

This picturesque narrative by a little girl in 
the seventh grade shows what might be the influ- 
ence of rightly chosen plays. 

To carry out the foregoing investigation more 
fully, the writer addressed a questionnaire to 
the teachers of schools in Providence and Chi- 
cago asking the number of absences traced to the- 
ater attendance, the effect of theater-going upon 
school work and composition, upon character, 
ideals, conduct and manners, and concerning 
the practice of giving school plays. These ques- 
tions brought forth chiefly negative results. Few, 
apparently, had given the subject thought, and 
most of those answering had noticed no direct 
effects whatever upon pupils. Even among those 
who answered generously, offering interesting 
and suggestive comments and giving definite 
opinions, there was little unanimity. With the 
teachers who thought theater-going had had a 
bad influence, the criticism was rather of the 
material presented than of theater - going in 
general. Their remarks and observations related 
chiefly to the effect upon the language and man- 
ners of pupils; though the effect upon charac- 
ter, temperament and scholarship was also 
noted. Among these various opinions were the 
following: — 



I 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

Less refined vocabularies and a great use of slang, 
one result of theater-going. 

Ideas not suited to childhood inculcated; forward- 
ness and bad manners the result. 

Children attending most frequently among the 
weakest in character and of low moral tone. 

It induces dreaminess or Kstlessness and inability 
to keep attention upon work. A feeling of unrest 
and a dislike for continued application. 

Pupils, in some cases, were thought to have been 
influenced unfavorably by older members of a family 
of theater-goers. 

According to other teachers the noticeable 
effects were good. 

Larger vocabularies; greater power of expression; 
a wider comprehension of language. 

A better understanding of Hterary forms and a 
general "broadening" effect. 

Gain in ease of manner and politeness; a sharpen- 
ing of the sense of right and wrong. 

These teachers said furthermore that the thea- 
ter-going children seemed more wide-awake than 
the rest. In their opinion dime novels and other 
trashy reading and the street as playground had 
a far more injurious effect upon character. 

In general, the teachers failed to correlate 
theater attendance with scholarship, and the 

15 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

few reports upon this point disagreed. One 
teacher claimed that in every case where children 
made numerous visits to the theater, they were 
over age for the grade and extremely poor pupils; 
others stated that the most frequent attendants 
were good pupils both in work and conduct. Only 
a few absences due to theater - going were re- 
ported. A few girls had made attempts to repro- 
duce fancy steps, and boys athletic feats ; though, 
as a whole, the result in imitation seems to have 
been rather slight. In boys, admiration of Wild 
West adventures increased. One teacher traced 
this directly in two pupils who had attended fre- 
quently; one presented her almost every day 
with a little picture of himself as cowboy, on foot 
or on horseback, and also gave her a picture of 
"Convict 999"; the other boy came to school 
with a cowboy belt and a pistol-case. 

Although the results of this inquiry were thus 
inconclusive, doubtless owing to lack of system- 
atic observation on the part of the teachers, a 
possible good resulted from drawing their atten- 
tion to the problem. 

In contrast to such excessive gratification as 

mere spectators of theater performances, these 

children were found to have had little experience 

as actors. Less than a fourth of the number had 

16 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

ever taken part in plays, either in school or else- 
where. Most of the teachers made no practice 
of having stories acted or of giving school plays, 
though, in the few instances where this was done, 
favorable results were reported. The usual rea- 
sons for considering such practice beneficial were 
given: as a means of impressing a lesson vividly 
so that it is not easily forgotten; teaching children 
to appear at ease in pubHc; a method of insuring 
work on the part of pupils because of the interest 
aroused; affording a pleasing variety to the rou- 
tine of school work; and also, bringing teacher 
and pupil into closer fellowship. Of the unfavor- 
able conditions, it was mentioned that many 
lessons are not suitable for acting while others 
admit a few actors only; and, when all the chil- 
dren cannot take part, some in consequence are 
made unhappy, besides failing to get the benefit 
resulting from participation in the acting. The 
danger, too, of making the more talented pupils 
conceited was touched on; and also, as a possible 
harmful feature of dramatics, the general atmos- 
phere of excitement that prevails among the 
children throughout the school when preparations 
for a play are in progress, many of them seeming 
to feel offended when asked to open schoolbooks. 
A slight disposition to regard play-giving as a 

17 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

means of rewarding good work and conduct, 
rather than as an instrument for securing the 
same, was evident, one teacher reporting school 
entertainments twice a year, when the "most 
deserving" pupils took part, "with beneficial 
results to themselves and to the school." In 
some cases, lack of time and a crowded curric- 
ulum were the excuses given for excluding the 
practice; but, in general, a certain degree of 
appreciation of its advantages was apparent, 
though not the enthusiasm which the writer has 
encountered when talking with teachers who 
make a special point of meeting the need in chil- 
dren for dramatic expression, and who recognize 
the splendid opportunity for it in connection 
with school work. 

Of those who had taken part, only a small 
proportion had failed to enjoy the experience. 
Where dislike of acting was expressed, the an- 
swer seemed to point to faults in the method of 
training and production (the play having evi- 
dently taken on too ostensibly the form of a 
task), as shown by the following: "I did not 
enjoy it, you have so many rehearsals and have 
to learn so much." These, however, were not 
the common grounds of complaint, which were 
seemingly the result of sensitiveness and self- 
i8 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

consciousness, as illustrated by: "No, I did not 
enjoy it because everybody looks at you, and 
talks about you; and if you make a little mistake 
they laugh at you"; while with a few children 
there seemed to be an imnatural fastidiousness 
in an aversion to dressing and making-up, black- 
ing hands and face, etc. The great majority of 
the children, however, showed thorough enjoy- 
ment of the experience, both the preparation 
and the actual giving of the performance. Pride 
in having a principal role entered into this enjoy- 
ment for some children, and love of praise; as 
also the feeling of conscious power, the fun of 
practicing, enjoyment of its impersonality, its 
amusing quality as a play, the novelty of speech 
and dress, pleasure in declaiming and in the 
company of other children of the same age. 

The comments of the children brought out 
various points of interest. Some lost themselves 
so completely in the story of the play that they 
failed to enter into particulars, but simply took 
pride in the impersonation of the part ; as shown 
by such expressions as "I have taken part in 
a play myself.'' The egotistic desire for self-ex- 
pression came out, as in the following: "I did 
enjoy it. I had a great deal to do in all." In 
one case, a mercenary spirit was shown: "I did 

19 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

enjoy it because I got lots of money and the best 
part." The delight in ''dressing up," so strong in 
almost all children, as well as enjoyment of the 
comic and the novel, was seen in remarks such 
as ''I took part in Singin Skewl ; I enjoyed it 
because we were all dressed up and had funny 
names, and a funny man was teacher and he said 
funny things." Some children showed recogni- 
tion of the benefit of training in expression, say- 
ing, "Yes, I enjoyed it because it shows us some- 
thing and shows us how to talk," and "Because 
I Hke to speak"; and gratification of the social 
instinct was indicated by "I enjoyed it because 
we had fun practicing"; and "I enjoyed it be- 
cause the other persons were about my age." 
A large proportion of the children showed the 
strength of the imitative instinct, for, in addition 
to the plays in which they had been trained in 
their parts, characters and scenes that had made 
an impression on them at the theater were re- 
produced spontaneously by them in their play. 
A number of children had taken part in plays 
in their own attics and cellars, imitating, pre- 
sumably, plays seen at the theater; as shown by 
the remark, "Imitating Gentleman Jim, the 
Diamond Thief, yes, I enjoyed it very much, 
there was killing in it" — which is typical, more- 

20 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

over, of a class of scenes which appealed strongly 
to the imagination. While a few of the com- 
ments showed originality, the greater number 
gave again and again the same idea, sometimes 
in sHghtly var3dng forms of expression, but often 
in almost identical wording. 

Owing to the fact that children in some of the 
Chicago schools were told by teachers to rule 
out attendance at moving - picture theaters, 
while in others this was included in the reports, 
results on this point and inferences regarding 
preference for scenes and plays witnessed were 
invahdated for purposes of comparison with the 
reports from other cities. The fact also that 
teachers themselves in a few cases tabulated 
results in place of submitting original papers led 
to incompleteness. On the whole, however, only 
minor differences between the sets of answers 
were noticeable. 

The data obtained, giving the answers of but 
few teachers and results from the examinations 
of a comparatively small number of children, 
are offered not for quantitative or statistical 
value, but merely for their suggestiveness. Any 
one famiHar with the questionnaire method will 
realize the difficulty of obtaining satisfactory 
replies from children. While in many cases an- 

21 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

swers were "evidently given with perfect sincer- 
ity, in others there was a lack of it, especially 
in questions relating to expense and number 
of performances attended. Children of widely 
different classes of society were represented by 
the schools chosen and some allowance had to 
be made for those of foreign parentage, who 
either mismiderstood the questions or failed to 
express their meaning; also, for too vivid imagi- 
nation, marking the prolongation of the age when I 
strict adherence to truth has not become ha- 
bitual. 

With one group of children, the uniformity 
of expression and the altruistic motives given 
for their enjoyment in taking part in plays had 
to be discoimted; they indicated too plainly the 
guiding hand of the teacher in shaping the replies. 
A good deal of allowance, too, must be made for 
the inhibiting influence of the schoolroom, and 
for the giving-out of the questions much in the 
form of a school examination. One must bear 
in mind, moreover, how far behind their powers 
of comprehension is the ability of young children 
to express themselves. Some few children may 
have tried to hit upon the answer expected of 
them, but in most instances the answers were 
characterized by naivete. 

22 



THE THEATER-GOING OF CHILDREN 

Yet inadequate though' the information is in 
some respects, certain generalizations seem safe 
and justifiable. Even though exact figures may 
be lacking, the great prevalence of the theater- 
going habit among children and the excessive 
frequency of attendance stand out with incon- 
testable plainness. Children's inability to re- 
member names of plays seen, their often inde- 
finite answers and failure to discriminate clearly, 
indicate that too frequent theater-going surfeits 
rather than stimulates the imagination. More- 
over, the children's testimony shows the trashy 
character of the greater part of the material 
presented; appetite for the exciting is ministered 
to in undesirable forms, criminal characters call- 
ing forth admiration by their daring and figur- 
ing as heroes; while the cultivation of fine feeling 
and scruples is frequently incompatible with 
the general lesson conveyed. It also furnishes 
evidence of the laxity of officials in enforcing 
the laws regarding the attendance of young chil- 
dren unaccompanied by older people, and of the 
large proportion of children allowed by their 
parents to go to evening performances. It fur- 
nishes, besides, direct evidence of children's at- 
tempts to imitate what has been witnessed; thus 
suggesting the force of the impulse to reproduce 

23 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

and dramatize, and the necessity of providing 
good examples for imitation. 

From the acknowledged lack of previous con- 
sideration of the subject of children's theater at- 
tendance by many teachers and from the sHght 
account taken of play-giving in school, we may 
learn how Httle the possibiHties of the drama for 
educational purposes have been recognized, and 
how generally a great emotional force has been 
allowed to run to waste. 



Ill 

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF DRAMATIC 
ENTERTAINMENT 

From the foregoing statements it is evident that 
the theater is a force to be reckoned with in the 
life of children. The means to which they resort 
in procuring entrance furnish added testimony. 

Settlement workers say that young people of 
their neighborhoods go supperless in order to 
buy tickets, and the United Hebrews Charities 
of New York is often asked to procure reduced- 
rate tickets for children apparently far more in 
need of food and clothing. In their great desire 
to see cheap shows, boys even resort to pubhc 
begging. According to the manager of one of 
the large vaudeville houses of a New England 
city, they used to station themselves outside his 
theater and beg for pennies for tickets, till he 
was obliged to have a special officer detailed to 
keep them from his premises. 

Truant officers and those who come into con- 
tact with juvenile dehnquents have frequent 
proof of this passion for the theater. Dr. D. P. 

25 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

Macmillan, director of the child-study depart- 
ment in the Chicago Public Schools, finds that 
"every child who comes in for a psycho-physical 
examination from the Juvenile Court, either on 
a charge of delinquency or truancy, is found to 
be a chronic frequenter of cheap theaters/' J. 
Adams Puffer, formerly of the Lyman Reform 
School, in an article on boys* gangs, quotes from 
the truancy record, showing that thirty-six out 
of sixty-four boys went to shows, while twenty- 
four ran away to go to them. "Often," he says, 
"boys steal money or pick things out of the dump 
to sell, in order to go to shows." Says Miss 
Addams, "Out of my twenty years' experience 
at Hull House I recall all sorts of pilf erings, petty 
larcenies, and even burglaries, due to the never- 
ceasing effort on the part of boys to procure 
theater tickets." One illustration that she gives 
tells of a boy who at seven took money from his 
mother for the Saturday evening play; and who, 
after he was ten, was furnished with it regularly. 
But the Saturday performance only "started 
him off like," and to attend twice again on Sun- 
day the money was procured in various unlaw- 
ful ways. 

These are a few of the instances which might 
be multiplied indefinitely to show the irresistible 
26 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 

attraction of the theater for youth and childhood. 
Even in the spring, when the impulse to be out 
of doors is strong, moving-picture shows will 
be found crowded with boys. Thus it will be seen 
that the theater meets a need; it satisfies natural 
curiosity, the craving for excitement, and the 
love of excursions into the world of the imagina- 
tion. The more restricted and colorless the Kfe, 
the more this need is felt. 

In reality this demand for the dramatic is 
only a demand for the expression of personality, 
— "a push of the ego which finds its vent vicari- 
ously," — and the chance to escape from limi- 
tations, both natural and imposed, is eagerly 
sought and seized upon. Especially is this the 
case in narrow lives where the greater the monot- 
ony and the more filled with drudgery, the greater 
is the craving for variety and change — the 
reaction and revolt from the starved imagina- 
tion. 

But granting, as one must, the perennial at- 
traction of the theater, admitting that theatrical 
nutriment is beneficial or necessary for young 
people, the question may well be asked, "How 
can we render the theater educationally effec- 
tive and make it a force for good?" 

To say that the theater does not occupy to- 
27 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 



II 



day a high and dignified position is mere com- 
monplace; but what are we doing to improve its ^ ^ 
condition? For years various means have been f | 
suggested; but, until recently, they have led to 
little organized effort, and that Httle limited to 
few directions. It has been said that to elevate 
the theater the people must first be elevated, 
and that to elevate the people the theater must 1 
first be elevated. This reasoning in a circle is I 
yet true, and efforts have been directed to both 
ends. Art theaters have been proposed that, 
freed from the spirit of commercialism, the thea- 
ter might provide only the best; while opposed 
to this solution is the belief that it is impossible 
to force upon the pubKc what it does not want; 
and that the desire for something better is first 
to be created and the taste of the people culti- 
vated and uplifted. In reality, creating a finer 
public taste means the building of a finer public 
morality, for there is, indeed, as Coleridge said, 
an intimate connection between the two. 

In this whole question of public taste and 
morals the theater touches one of the educational 
problems of the day, namely, the old question 
of how far cultural studies may with impunity 
be crowded out of pubHc-school work in order 
to give place to the so-called practical subjects 
28 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 

of the course. The schools educate the people 
who create the demand for drama; but how little 
they are educating them to appreciate the beau- 
tiful and artistic, the class of plays which appeal 
most to the general run of theater-goers offers 
convincing proof. 

It is, indeed, true that our pubKc schools do 
little to develop the dramatic and aesthetic sense, 
or prepare children to exercise discrimination 
between good drama and what is essentially 
coarse, between the artistic and the low-toned. 
The Katharsis (purification) of Aristotle, too, is 
almost entirely overlooked. Yet so long as the 
theater forms one of the chief amusements of 
the people, how else, if not in the common schools, 
is the great body of theater-goers to be trained 
to proper standards? Even when plays are stud- 
ied in school, which happens only in high schools 
or upper grammar grades, the greater part are 
read as literature; and as Professor Baker of 
Harvard has pointed out, pupils are seldom 
taught to feel or to see them as different from a 
story, though it is only in reaHzing the action 
that a play can be properly appreciated and 
judged. 

The theater is a dangerous force when left to 
itself. So far has it departed, in these days, from 
29 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

its former high ideals that it is hard to realize 
how intimate was the comiection which once 
existed between it and religion. All peoples have 
possessed some sort of drama, however crude; I 
but far back in the beginnings of civilization, it 
developed out of religious practices and teach- 
ings. In ancient Greece the reciting of legends 
or hymns associated with certain religious observ- 
ances and rites and accompanied by dance and 
gesture developed into the accepted form of 
classic drama. Even after classic drama came 
into its definite and lasting form, it preserved for _ 
a considerable period the religious element, as I 
is shown in fragments of the Neo-Greek drama. 
Again, in its mediaeval revival, it was used for 
educational and moral ends, when mystery plays 
became a direct means of spiritual and moral | 
instruction, uphfting and educating the masses * 
while seeming only to amuse. Monks and guild- 
players, going about in their two-storied carts, 1 
giving performances to the assembled crowds, so I 
impressed the thought and lofty expression of * 
their Bible plays upon the hearers that feeling 
was stirred and mind and character developed. 

To-day, opportunities for turning it to good 
account are as great as in olden times; and ap- 
pealing as it does to ear and eye alike, possess- 

30 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 

ing greater opportunities than other arts for 
moving the great mass of people it stirs emotions 
quickly, gives ideals and standards and shapes 
conduct, playing upon those especially suscep- 
tible to good or bad influence with beneficial 
or disastrous result. 

Indeed, it would be difficult to overemphasize 
the moral effect of drama for good or for evil, 
though the latter is more readily discerned. It 
may not be immediately apparent, since it is 
frequently too subtle to be traced definitely to 
its source. Nevertheless, we must remember that 
the theater is always educating either upward 
or downward, however little spectators are con- 
scious of it. 

In an article by Miss Elizabeth McCracken on 
*'Play and the Gallery," numerous interesting 
examples of the effect on individuals are given, 
showing how the remembrance of certain plays 
or characters of plays has helped them over 
crises in their lives. One girl, when asked how 
she liked Cyrano de Bergerac, said she thought 
'^all the trouble came because they cared so 
much for looks"; later, this girl comforted a child 
who had been badly burned and was likely to 
be disfigured by saying, ^^Well, it won't matter 
much, dear; looks ain't what count; it's what we 

31 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

do that counts." A woman who had seen the 
Merchant of Venice and remembered Portia's 
famous speech on mercy remarked, "I don't 
want to be mean, 'cause of her." Another wo-ij 
man said that Othello believed everything he 
heard, and so remembering how he ended kept 
her from believing lots she heard. "These peo- 
ple," says Miss McCracken, "are unconsciously! 
making a plea for the theater." She mentions! 
certain plays whose influence has been harmful. 
A girl who had seen Nell Gwynn said, "She was 
n't a good woman, was she? But in the play she 
seemed better than them; she gets along best. 
But even if she did n't, if they used to think her 
bad, why do they think her good now?" Of The 
Gay Lord Quex, a boy said: "The worst is the 
best and they gets out best." Miss McCracken 
remarks that the boy had seen Hamlet aright, 
and did so, probably, in this. 

With these examples of Miss McCracken's 
in mind, an attempt was made by the writer to 
find out what effect plays had produced on a cer- 
tain yoimg working-girl who is an inveterate 
theater-goer. She was unable to give any in- 
stance of application in her own Hfe of lessons 
gained at the theater, but some of her judgments 
and opinions are interesting. At first she could 
32 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 

not recall anything that had moved her particu- 
larly, except that, after seeing Uncle Tom's 
Cabin, she ^'kept thinking of Eva's death all the 
next day." However, given time to think back, 
after a day or so she offered comments on other 
plays. As Ye Sow had made an impression. 
"Mr. St. John," she said, "was on the shore. 
He was to be married; all the guests had arrived, 
the bride was dressed for the ceremony, but 
a ship was in danger at sea, and he was willing 
to pledge his own life." It was a good lesson, she 
thought, in unselfishness. He had to put off the 
date of his marriage to rescue the people. After 
a tragedy she was affected for ten or fifteen min- 
utes. She criticized a certain actress in the role 
of Camille. "It was not as effective as it ought 
to have been." She had had more s)rmpathy for 
the woman when reading the story. "But do 
you think you ought to have sympathy for her? " 
she was asked. "Well, I think I ought; if it was 
n't her fault — if she did n't have a mother, and 
was led in and had no one to lead her out." Thus 
thousands of the masses are not only gaining to- 
day their ideas of propriety and conventionality, 
but their interpretations of life, from the stage. 
The fact that what is seen at the theater so 
often becomes a moral guide, giving standards 

33 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

for character and conduct and definite instruc- 
tions for daily living, makes the justification of 
crime upon the stage all the more serious. In an 
investigation reported by Miss Jane Addams, 
it was found that, in a majority of the four hun- 
dred and sixty-six theaters of Chicago visited 
one Sunday evening, revenge was the leading 
theme. It was estimated that one sixth of the 
entire population had attended the theaters on 
that day. In a series of sHdes popular in one 
of the five-cent theaters, a golden-haired boy of 
seven was represented as vowing vengeance 
upon house-breakers who had killed his father; 
and after the execution of each villain portrayed 
in all its horrors, the little fellow was pictured 
kneehng upon his father's grave, and thanking 
God for permitting this vengeance. 

Judge W. W. Foster, of the General Sessions 
Court, New York, claims that the portrayal of 
crime upon the stage is dangerous to morals and 
that it exercises a hypnotic influence upon spec- 
tators. But the essence of the drama is the por- 
trayal of conflict of some sort, whether, as in 
melodrama, the strife is between villain and hero, 
or, as in drama of a higher class, a moral conflict 
or a battle between ideas. The danger from the 
portrayal of crime upon the stage is really de- 

34 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 

pendent upon the purpose of the play and the 
method used in accompKshing it. 

The writer has been astonished, at times, at 
the craving shown by women theater-goers for 
lurid representations. One woman of mild and 
respectable appearance, whom she engaged in 
conversation during an intermission, intimated 
her indifference to the play, and confessed to a 
liking for one ''with kilHng in it." Such an in- 
stance would be discouraging if we did not know 
that though the theater too often gratifies the 
craving for morbid excitement, it becomes at 
times "a veritable house of dreams," where ideals 
are reaHzed and the longing for romance and for 
mystery is in a measure appeased. The majority 
are best pleased by the play which takes them 
out of their sordid daily life; and starved imagi- 
nations are led to accept the picturing of most 
improbable happenings. If its ministration on 
the side of good could but gain the upper hand, 
it is impossible to estimate all that could be 
accomplished in the line of moral and civic 
regeneration. 

The decisions of the officials who license shows 
are too often characterized by a disposition to 
please and to act in accordance with the de- 
mands of the public will and taste, rather than 

35 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

up to a cultural standard. But in their defense 
we must say that, from the very number of the • 
plays submitted, the power of discrimination I 
becomes weakened. Also a play may be chosen I 
not for its intrinsic but its relative merits; in 
other words, it is found tolerably good compared 
with those that are more obviously vicious. In 
a certain New England city the president of a 
*^ Watch and Ward Society" tried to guard public 
morals against offensive bill-boards, and to in- I 
form the police of things that were of improper 
character. Pictures in art stores were subject 
to investigation; and it was agreed that the 
society's representative should pass judgment 
upon penny pictures. The agent, a clergyman, 
who was also agent for a Temperance Associa- 
tion and a Public Purity Association, was em- 
ployed, besides, to go to theaters for the purpose 
of listening to and criticizing plays. It was under- 
stood that anything to which he objected should 
be cut out by the police. He said that many 
times actors had had their cue, and certain things 
usually included in a performance were sup- 
pressed when he was present. This agent is said 
to have stated, with ^'evidence of pain," that 
his taste had become vitiated; and the chairman 
of the police commission would seem to have 

36 



PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS 

corroborated this view, when, laughing about a 
controversy over some of the pictures, he told 
how he had thrown out twelve that the clergy- 
man had passed. If a clergjnnan and citizen 
of recognized good standing acknowledges a 
vitiation of his taste from constantly seeing vice 
depicted on the stage, it is well to realize the 
significance of its effect upon impressionable 
young minds and hearts. To face the problem 
of the day and guard the young, we must employ 
not destructive methods only, such as a more 
rigid censorship and the like, nor even keep chil- 
dren from the theater, but rather turn our ener- 
gies to work of more constructive character. 



IV 

DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS AND COLLE 



dE? 



Within a few years there has been almost an 
epidemic of interest in dramatization as a par 
of primary-school work. In the lower grades o: 
public schools, teachers have been setting chil- 
dren to act out stories previously read or told to 
them, for the purpose of gaining greater freedom 
and spontaneity of expression. It is difficult to 
say where this practice started, but certain it is 
that it has had a phenomenally rapid rise. It is 
one of the most recent developments of interest 
in child nature, and follows naturally on that 
which was aroused in kindergarten work and 
school hygiene, and later by the establishment 
of playgrounds and oversight of children's play 
both in recreation and school hours. 

In many cities the introduction of this work, 
as well as the amount of time given to it, has been 
left largely to the discretion of individual teachers; 
in others, it is compulsory and has been reduced 
to a definite system. In a small city of Massa- 
chusetts, it has been introduced as part of a 

38 



ii 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

method of teaching reading, the bare outline of 
which is as follows: first, the story; second, a list 
of rhymes to furnish the stock in trade of words; 
third, pictures that illustrate the story; fourth, 
and last, dramatization, that is, the simple act- 
ing out of the story told by the teacher. The 
idea is to fill the children so full of the story that 
they will want to act it out, but not to let them 
memorize in preparation. So long as the spirit 
and idea of the story are preserved, the children 
may use their own words to reproduce it. They 
need, at first, not only suggestion, but help in 
the work. Gradually, however, this is withdrawn, 
or should be if the teacher keeps in view the 
development of self-reliance in the pupil. 

Many teachers, entirely inexperienced in this 
work, at first meet with difficulties, and the ten- 
dency to render mechanical what should be 
spontaneous is all too common. There is great 
temptation to aim at a finished product, and 
many an excuse or apology is offered to visitors 
for crude performances. Those who best under- 
stand the aim and purpose of the work empha- 
size the points that the same story or poem should 
not be given out for dramatization too fre- 
quently, and that the same children should not 
be chosen for the same parts. The individual 

39 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

differences and mental attitude of the children 
are to be considered, the over-forward or super- 
cilious child judiciously dealt with, and the awk- 
ward, bashful, sensitive child particularly en- 
couraged, brought out, given confidence, and 
stimulated to wholesome competition. 

The influence of the schoolroom is almost 
invariably inhibitory, but repression and indif- 
ference disappear when the acting of a story 
is in progress. To see faces instantly kindle 
with animation, hands wave frantically when a 
teacher says, "Now, would you like to act 
out something?" — to hear one voice say, 
**0h, yes"; another, "Just love to"; to see 
the eagerness to be chosen for a part is to 
see interest aroused, such as is without rival 
during school hours — an interest which puts 
even that favorite school diversion of past 
generations, the spelling - match, far in the 
background. Disappointment inevitably ap- 
pears on the faces of those not chosen for 
roles, but it soon changes into sheer absorption 
in what the others are doing. Not infrequently 
all the children of a schoolroom can take part 
in a play; as in The Pied Piper, when, as rat or 
child, the motor energy of every young aspirant 
may find expression. Surely when one sees the 
40 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

joy and delight this acting, considered merely 
as play or healthful exercise of mind and body, 
gives to the children, dramatization as a part 
of school work should find justification. But it 
is not yet universal. Many children are new to 
anything of the kind; what is yet more of an 
impediment to good results, teachers are also 
new to it; and some of them, because of the very 
lack of similar training in their own youth, are 
stiff and mechanical in method. It is the teacher, 
naturally, who must lead in breaking through 
the restraint and conventionality of the school- 
room. To some, the opportunity for doing this 
is welcome. But the teacher who is not sensible 
of the advantages of delicate sentiment and sug- 
gestion, who bases her instruction on hard, def- 
inite statement of fact only, who would sacrifice 
spirit and originality for overexact reproductions 
of content, is little likely to succeed in work of 
this character. That some teachers are intro- 
ducing it because it is prescribed, treating it as a 
subject which they wish to bring up to the stand- 
ard of efficiency of other required school work, 
but the pedagogical importance of which they 
have not grasped, is sometimes very apparent, 
and is an inevitable result of an often too great 
mechanization in school curricula. Ask teachers 

41 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

what effects they have noticed from the work, 
and, for some of them, the question seems to be 
raised for the first time. Others, however, say 
that they have noticed greater freedom in the 
use of English both in reciting and in conversa- 
tion. This would seem to be especially true of 
foreign-born children. According to one teacher 
two Norwegian boys, who had never amounted 
to anything in school, got their start from drama- 
tizing and had been able ever since to do good 
work. Some enthusiastic teachers are perhaps 
overemphasizing one phase of it, making such 
a point of expression as to produce a result, pos- 
sibly only temporary, verging on the unnatural 
or artificial. Doubtless the pendulum must 
swing far both ways before teachers adjust them- 
selves to a method for which natural endowment 
and education may have sparingly equipped 
them. 

As the grades ascend, one finds less and less 
dramatizing introduced into primary - school 
work, and in the grammar school the attention 
paid to it is almost nil. There are so many re- 
quired studies that time is lacking for work not 
yet standardized; and what is relatively unim- 
portant because not demanded for promotion 
can receive but scant attention. That the age of 
42 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

self-consciousness begins after the first primary- 
school grades are passed is a reason, perhaps, 
why precisely the same sort of dramatic expres- 
sion should not find place in grammar schools; 
but that all dramatic work should cease until 
high school is reached (at which stage it is quite 
the practice in many cities to give school plays) 
is unpedagogical, since irregular and unsystema- 
tized practice is of little benefit. That there 
should be such a break and no tiding-over the 
awkwardness which frequently develops in later 
childhood, and that what has been gained in the 
first grades should be allowed to lose much of its 
effect through neglect, is to be regretted; since it 
is difficult, and in some cases impossible, to re- 
vive an instinct which has once degenerated by 
disuse. To bridge this self-conscious period, the 
literary study of drama might be introduced, the 
training of the imaginative and the analytical 
faculty, and the learning to read a drama not 
as a story merely, but so dramatically as to 
bring out clearly its purpose and action. 

, Even the practice of play-giving in high schools, 
in many cities where it is the rule, often needs 
reconstructing. The best students in English 
are usually chosen for the play. Mildly suggest 
to a teacher who acknowledges this that the poor 

43 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

students of English may be the very ones who 
most need this work, and the stereotyped answer 
is that these cannot afford the time for it. Then, 
too, the idea of the finished product is so much 
in mind that a play is cast with reference to it, 
and with some justice, since regard must be had 
for the benefit to be derived by pupils who are | 
spectators as well as by those who actively take 
part. To obviate this difficulty classwork for all, 
followed by competition and arrangement of 
parts, may be suggested. 

In one high school known to the writer there 
is an English club of limited membership, only 
the best students in Enghsh being chosen for it. 
Play-giving was found a necessary condition of 
the club's existence, as interest in its work could 
not be kept up otherwise. The teacher of the 
school in question states that the effect of the 
few members of this club upon her whole room 
is leavening; they act as leaders; and their good 
reading, marked by freedom and self-confidence, 
gives confidence to others. 

That a few teachers are fully alive to the value 
of dramatic work in education is as true as that 
many are indifferent to it. One has only to talk 
with grammar and high-school principals to dis- 
cover that at least three distinct attitudes are 

44 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

evident: First, quite a large number of these 
principals have given the matter little thought 
and attention; second, some have considered it 
but are opposed to it; third, still others believe 
in the practice of play-giving in school, introduce 
it into their work, and, unlike some of the pri- 
mary-school teachers, are ready with their rea- 
sons for thoroughly indorsing it. In the first 
class may be mentioned a grammar-school prin- 
cipal of a New England city who, when inter- 
viewed, laughed and said in substance: "Why, 
yes, I believe in anything pupils can do that is 
pleasant; I do not object to anything in the 
line of school work which does not impede the 
natural development of the child. If under good 
influences he does nothing but play, it is all right. 
I agree with Hughes, of Toronto, ' that children 
have a good deal to contend with — who have 
to go to school.' " So very broad a view, however, 
can hardly be given as typical of any consider- 
able class of teachers. 

Of the second class, I cite a grammar-school 
principal who said that he did not believe in 
school plays nor theater-going, for the main rea- 
son that children's minds are already too much 
taken up with outside work. School work should 
be kept in steady lines, he thought; otherwise 

45 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

there was dissipation of energy. Another prin- 
cipal said that he had a play given annually in 
his school, choosing one for its value in historical 
suggestion, moral influence, dramatic merit, 
etc., but he guards his young people carefully, 
as he has noticed elsewhere the bad effects upon 
adolescent boys and girls of practicing together. 
They have outgrown the innocent, unconscious 
age and need most careful oversight. It is a 
dangerous time to bring young people of oppo- 
site sexes together, nor does he beheve in making 
artificial the emotion which should be the most 
sacred thing in life. He would stimulate young 
people to highest regard and love of the opposite 
sex, but by judicious teaching and restraint. A 
boy who had left school because of his inability, 
through interest in the other sex, or rather, in 
one of his girl companions, to apply himself 
properly to his studies, when re-admitted to the 
school, said he was "over it." Taken at his word, 
he soon proved his ability to do good work. A 
premature love-affair had absolutely barred 
progress in school. There is always an element 
in every school that inclines toward the bad, and 
he does not beheve in putting much that can 
be misinterpreted in the way of boys. 

In the third class may be placed a ninth- 

46 



i 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

grade grammar-school teacher and principal who 
said, in speaking of dramatic work, ^'I think 
it revolutionizes a class as nothing else will, and 
that any teacher can find time in school for work 
that she really thinks important." On my visit 
to her school, this teacher had her class go to the 
assembly hall, where some of the pupils gave, for 
my benefit, scenes from several plays they had 
been studying. These pupils had never rehearsed 
together, as the teacher does not ordinarily 
throw boys and girls together for rehearsals. 
They had learned a great many parts, boys and 
girls taking those of men or women indiscrimi- 
nately. The scenes called for at this time were 
from the Merchant of Venice and Julius Casar, 
Two pupils were chosen for the same part, ar- 
ranging with each other where the first should 
leave off and the second begin. The order, facil-, 
ity, and alertness of the children in disposing of 
these and other preKminaries, and their ease in 
impersonating the different roles, showed plainly 
the effect of the work in developing initiative 
and giving confidence. Their enjoyment in the. 
whole proceeding was contagious. It brought 
vividly to mind, by contrast, other schoolroom 
scenes in which children had been distressed and 
even tearful because of a stranger's presence. 

47 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

Some of the effects of the work are amusing 
as well as interesting. A mother said that so 
great was the interest of her child in dramatic 
work that everybody in the family had been 
made to act. The father could not get away for 
a trip to New York, the servant girl took part, 
and finally even the baby was made to represent 
"a dirty little pig.'^ In another family every- 
body had become interested in the dramatic work 
which was engrossing the child of the household; 
even the father, who was one day found in his 
room reading the Merchant of Venice. In an- 
other case, a father who had been interested in 
the theater in his youth to the extent of being 
"super" for great actors on several occasions, 
after his marriage to a woman whose taste ran 
in different lines had lost his liking for high-class 
drama and had since gone to the theater only for 
amusement. But when one day his son began 
the speech of Antony, the father took it up, re- 
citing it to the end, and from that time showed 
an interest in the boy's progress and rehearsed 
his parts with him. Later, even the mother's 
interest was aroused and she did the same. 

Perhaps the most interesting case was that of 
an incorrigible schoolboy who scuffed his feet 
and did everything to annoy. There seemed to 
48 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

be no way of appealing to him, and his teacher 
almost despaired. Finally he took part in a play 
and made a great success of his role — a comic 
one. The teacher laughed heartily at his per- 
formance, and from that time the boy was won. 
He lost his sullen look, and showed quite a dif- 
ferent side of his nature; and even after his pro- 
motion to high school, he remained the devoted 
friend of his earlier teacher. 

The enthusiasm shown by this ninth -grade 
teacher, and her manner of exhibiting the dra- 
matic work of her pupils to a visitor within regu- 
lar school hours, are almost paralleled in an inci- 
dent which especially impressed Mr. A. Caswell 
Ellis on his visit to French schools, and which I 
quote from his article. The principal of a com- 
mon school in Paris broke up several classes to 
have a large number of pupils go into the audi- 
torium and give a play they had themselves written 
of heroic and classic type. The children, aged 
from ten to fourteen, had planned the stage- 
setting, made helmets, breastplates, etc. They 
acted it out after their own ideas with great en- 
thusiasm and intensity. The principal of the 
school was most enthusiastic about it, and said, 
*^Ah, it takes a lot of time; but it is of more 
worth than the learning of whole pages of some 

49 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

literature book. What we want is to make these 
boys sensitive to the things around them, to the 
beauties of plot, of expression, of thought; and 
this attempt to do something themselves and 
their appreciation of the beauties of their own 
work will make them more sympathetic and more 
sensitive to the beauties of the great masters/' 

In the Pierce School, Brookline, Massachu- 
setts, thirty minutes are given each week to such 
dramatics, in which pupils may work out any- 
thing they please. In their play-giving the stage- 
setting is largely the result of their own inge- 
nuity. Children dramatize famiHar stories and 
have an idea of the action required and knowi 
all the parts of the play. The work has proved " 
valuable in giving an initiative which has mani- 
fested itself variously. In thus working together 
the children, it is claimed, lose all sense of class 
distinction, and the daughter of the scrub-wo- 
man and the little girl who comes to school in an 
automobile labor together, and so become friends. 

Mr. W. E. Chancellor is among the educators 
who are earnest behevers in the value of drama- 
tizing school work. Lower-grade pupils will get 
valuable practice, he thinks, by dramatizing 
problems in arithmetic; and the telling or read- 
ing of a story, and letting children work it out 

50 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

dramatically, he also considers especially useful 
in history and Hterature. In his Class Teaching 
and Management he says : — 

Learning verbatim a good account of the battle of 
Gettysburg is quite a different thing from learning 
it dramatically in a lesson in which Seminary Ridge 
and Cemetery Ridge are represented by rows of fur- 
niture and a charge of Pickett's men acted out by 
the learners themselves. In the first case, one learns 
the story and how to tell it in words. In the second 
instance, he feels the emotions of that great event. 
The difference is that between literary accompHsh- 
ments and dramatic or practical efficiency. It is 
narrative, even picturing in words, over against 
realization. . . . The trend of modern educational 
method is so strongly in the direction of learning by 
doing, whenever this method of learning is feasible, 
that it is well to see clearly that this method amounts 
to a rediscovery of the place of working efficiency 
among the ideals of education. It had long been 
forgotten from an overcare for intelligence alone. 

The introduction of dramatic work into schools 
is not confined to the United States and France. 
Even in England, where until recently school 
regime was so seldom relaxed, dramatization of 
school lessons is sometimes practiced. In the 
Sompting Elementary School in Essex, for ex- 
ample, lessons by means of acting are made more 

51 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION l| 

real and vivid for children whenever possible. 
Indeed, the ''dramatic" method might be called 
the method of the school; and while it has been 
productive of excellent results, it is difficult to 
say how far these are due to the genius of the 
particular teacher in charge. In the teaching of 
history, scenes from historical novels and origi- I 
nal plays, material for which is taken directly 
from books of history, are acted. Literature is 
learned by acting the content of a poem which I 
has been either previously recited or given simply 
in dumb show; as also scenes from the Pickwick 
Papers, in which, according to Miss Finley- 
Johnston, head-mistress of the school, the intel- 
lect of a dunce has been sharpened by having 
him impersonate Mr. Winkle. In teaching geo- 
graphy, dialogue between inhabitants of different 
localities is resorted to, or pseudo-travelers im- 
part information while acting out appropriately 
the customs and occupations of the place de- 
scribed. For lessons in arithmetic, the question- 
and-answer method is employed, and the play 
involves buying and selHng. Practice in com- 
position and letter- writing is obtained by means 
of a game in which one pupil, impersonating 
a merchant in need of an office boy, writes an 
advertisement, to which the other pupils each 

52 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

reply. In nature study, flowers are made to talk; 
while in manual training, boys build the shed 
used in a particular game, excavate flints and 
marl from their playground to form a garden, 
etc., while girls play at keeping dressmakers* 
shop in learning how to sew. Surely, this is carry- 
ing a method to extremes. 

In colleges and universities in recent years 
there has been a development of dramatic work 
that has tended to raise it from the level of mere 
amusement and pastime to an educational factor, 
and given it a dignity and importance which it 
has not hitherto possessed. For years students 
have been in the habit of giving farces for their 
own amusement and for the entertainment of 
their friends, and have had clubs which existed 
for the purpose. It has been customary, too, for 
different academic departments to give plays 
at intervals, and for graduating classes to make 
them features of their commencement programs. 
These attempts have been of increasingly ambi- 
tious character, and in many instances so credit- 
able in result as to receive approval and com- 
mendation from college faculties. Most of my 
readers will be tolerably familiar with work of 
the kind. 

Harvard has its societies which give old Eng- 

53 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

lish as well as French and German plays, and 
it was the first college to attempt a Greek play 
on an ambitious scale. The work of its Cercle 
Frangais has become well known. For nearly 
twenty years it has been giving French plays, 
and its reputation for them has been carried 
across the water. M. Gofflot, in his book Le 
Theatre au College du Moyen Age d nos Jours y 
has tried to show the decided influence of the 
theater on education, and claims that the Cercle 
Frangais of Harvard has done much to that endi 

At Yale, students take an active interest in' 
play-giving. They have an association formed for 
the purpose which furthers in various ways the 
study of drama, procuring distingmshed actors 
and students of drama as lecturers, engaging the 
Ben Greet Company to give performances, etc. 
It has, moreover, furnished a model for similar 
organizations throughout the country, and is said 
to fill a "distinct, legitimate educational func- 
tion.'' 

In the state universities of Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
and California, and in niunerous others, there 
is great interest in play-giving and serious work 
and study in connection with it. The University 
of Cahfornia has an outdoor theater, modeled 
on that of the Dionysius Theater in Greece, and 

54 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

a professional actor in charge of dramatic train- 
ing; while at the head of the English department 
is a well-known student of drama. 

In a nimiber of the colleges for women, plays 
are given by student societies during the year, 
and those of graduating classes are of a high 
order. The outdoor plays of Wellesley are now 
famous. Smith College, since it gave its Greek 
play more than two decades ago, has had each 
year a performance of ambitious character. A 
professional trainer is employed, and the senior 
dramatics have become an event which draws 
critics of drama annually. 

In many universities plays are among the 
pleasing features of commencement week, and 
represent careful and conscientious study, usually 
of a masterpiece; for while faculties do not insist 
upon it, they of course favor the giving of some- 
thing of acknowledged educational worth. 

The character of some of the literary courses 
offered now by colleges is significant in this con- 
nection; for interest in the study of drama as a 
distinctive literary type has greatly developed 
in the last twenty years, as shown by the number 
of editions of early English and other plays now 
in the market; also by the fact that some of the 
universities include with the study of drama, 

55 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

dramatic criticism and technique, the study of 
modern and contemporary plays, and practice 
in writing plays. The University of Minnesota 
gives practice in play-writing in its composition 
courses, and the two universities in California 
offer prizes for the writing of farces. In Tufts 
College the course in EngHsh includes the writ- 
ing of one, two, and three act plays, and that of 
Cornell, the study of dramatic structure and a 
weekly two-hour course in play-writing. At Bryn 
Mawr both graduate and undergraduate courses 
now include a study of dramatic technique and 
practice in dramatic composition. Professor 
Baker, of Harvard, and others introduce prac- 
tice in play-writing into their courses, and the 
study of drama has developed from tame interest 
into vigorous incentive. The value to students 
of substituting genuinely creative work for what 
is too often merely hj^ercritical and unproduc- 
tive is readily apparent, and already the practical 
results are most encouraging. Quite a nimiber of 
plays written by students have been accepted re- 
cently by professionals, and in some cases have 
had a long and popular run. The possibihty of 
developing in this way pla3rwrights, who will help 
to shape what may one day become a national 
type of drama, is promising. 
S6 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS 

In none of the colleges does the presentation 
of dramas yet find a recognized place in the cur- 
riculum; and considering the ideas that have long 
prevailed in college faculties as to what is or is 
not *^ academic," one would scarcely expect that 
play-acting would find place in official cata- 
logues. Still, ideas of the scope of college work 
are broadening, so that under its own or a more 
euphemistic head it is not impossible that it yet 
may find recognition. Frequently, college in- 
structors in elocution and physical educators 
coach the cast in the preHminary stages of train- 
ing, if not throughout the preparation of a play, 
but there has been no successful effort to gain 
"credit" for students for work done in plays. 
In consequence, the full possibilities of dramatic 
training as a college discipline have by no means 
been realized. The benefits have been confined 
to a comparatively few students; although usu- 
ally many more than those who actually take part 
in a given play take advantage of the training 
because of their enjoyment of it and reahzation 
of its value. Frequently those who have taken 
part in college dramatics look back in after years 
and acknowledge all that the training did for 
them; the beneficial results of it for voice, poise, 
and movement, as well as of the dancing exer- 

57 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

cises, which are a part of a "limbering-up" proc- 
ess often so thorough as to tire the hardened 
football player, have been noted by many indi- 
vidual teachers. Members of the faculty fre- 
quently express their appreciation of what such 
training does for students; and it is often a mat- 
ter of surprise to them how many hitherto un- 
noticed members of their classes are "brought 
out" by a play. Not only do they realize the 
value of the training as seen in mere outward 
expression, but they favor play-giving because 
of the students' gain through close acquaintance 
with the thought and purpose, the melodious 
and rhythmic phrasing, and the concise state- 
ment of great writers; lastly, because it serves 
for the training of character in general. 

But certain additional reasons for the more 
systematic use of college dramatics suggest 
themselves, such as have long been recognized 
by the Jesuits, who in their colleges have made 
great use of the drama. They realize that stu- 
dents must have occupation for the mind apart 
from work, something besides the sterner studies 
for relief and relaxation. They recognize that 
during winter months, when outdoor or athletic 
exercise is not always possible, the preparation 
for a play keeps young people interested and 
58 



DRAMATIC WORK IN SCHOOLS! 

employed, giving an outlet for energies and 
emotions such as would not be afiforded by per- 
functory physical and mental training, and serv- 
ing also as a moral prophylactic. 

As time goes on, and more and more the value 
of dramatics as a many-sided culture and dis- 
cipline is realized, it is to be hoped that all col- 
lege students will benefit by privileges that are 
now reserved for comparatively few. Could the 
cast which presents the commencement play be 
but one of many that, during the four years' 
college course, have had the advantage of the 
high-grade professional training more and more 
engaged for "senior plays," then would the em- 
phasis be placed where it belongs, — on the edu- 
cational features of the work, rather than upon 
the production of a single performance however 
beautiful and inspiring in itself. 



CONSTRUCTIVE EFFORTS TO PROVIDE 
GOOD DRAMA 

We naturally look to Germany as a leader in 
matters pertaining to education; let us note 
what she is doing to satisfy the dramatic instinct 
and turn it to account educationally. 

In a country where the stage is less superficial 
than with us and more nearly approaches church 
and school as a great cultural factor, it is not 
surprising to find that greater actual provision 
is made for high-grade theater performances at 
moderate cost. In various German cities, during 
the season, a repertoire of half a dozen or more 
standard plays is given; and in most if not all of 
the German capitals, there are subsidized theaters 
belonging either to the State or to the Crown. 
Berlin among its forty or more theaters has three 
such play-houses, which by royal command 
regularly give performances at special rates for 
families of the working-classes. The expenses 
considerably exceed the receipts, but the Kaiser 
pays the deficit. In other cities certain theaters, 
60 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

in accordance with the terms of their licenses, 
periodically give at reduced prices plays expressly 
chosen for children. Thus, instead of being left 
to seek the cheapest form of indiscriminate enter- 
tainment, children are taken from time to time 
by the principals of their schools or other teachers 
to the better class of performances. The attitude 
of German educators toward theater - going is 
pecuharly favorable; but it is largely due to the 
efforts of teachers' associations in the different 
cities that free performances for school children 
have become the rule. In Bremen and Hamburg, 
through their teachers' associations, private in- 
dividuals have been prevailed upon to defray 
the cost of classic plays given in the Stadt Thea- 
ter especially for pupils of the Volksschule; and 
in Dresden, a similar series has been established 
for pupils of the higher classes. To each play, 
sixty pupils chosen by lot are taken at a time. 
The performances are given regularly in the 
spring months, the time thus employed being 
deducted from that formerly devoted to the Ger- 
man language. Each teacher and child pays 
twenty-five Pfennige ($0.06), but the greater 
part of the cost is met by a royal subsidy of one 
thousand Marks ($250). In the higher schools 
surplus tickets for the best classical plays are 
61 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

sold to pupils for one Mark ($0.25) each. In 
Berlin, for some years past the Schiller Theater 
has been able, through the cooporation of city 
officials, to give ten performances yearly to about 
twelve thousand pupils of the common schools. 
In this case, the cost is defrayed from the interest 
of a fund devoted to useful or artistic ends, and 
under the control of the Kultus Minister. In 
Charlottenburg, two plays yearly are given to 
twelve hundred pupils, and the cost is included 
in the annual school budget. This is the most 
decisive step yet taken to provide plays for 
school children at public cost; but there is a grow- 
ing appreciation of the value of theater per- 
formances as a part of school work, and a feeling 
that parishes should introduce them in the free 
course, assume the duty of arranging with mana- 
gers for discount, and otherwise solve the prob- 
lem of ways and means. 

As in our own country the number of pieces 
suited to children in the German theater is very 
limited. Those usually given under the auspices 
mentioned, are by Schiller, Lessing, and Goethe; 
the plays most commonly produced being Wil- 
helm Tell, Jungfrau von Orleans, Minna von Barn- 
helm, Gotz von Berlichingen, and, in some cases, 
Maria Stuart, Even these do not seem in all 
62 



i 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

ways suited to children's comprehension; for 
as a result of the first experiment in this line, 
it was found that only one, Wilhelm Tell, was 
approved by all the teachers. Besides these 
classics for older pupils, dramatized fairy-tales 
(such as ^'Hansel and Gretel,'' and the "Story 
of Goldie Locks") are sometimes given, to which 
younger children of the common schools are 
taken by parents and teachers at special school 
rates. These stories are not usually presented in 
beautiful or artistic fashion; in many cases they 
are of little worth; and between the dramatized 
fairy-tale and the higher drama there is a great 
gap. Struggles of the child soul — e.g., the awak- 
ening of feelings of honor and guilt, and the trials 
and difficulties of school life — have been treated 
by Robert Saudeck in a number of plays; but 
these do not reach the standard of true drama, 
and while they present the real psychological 
problems of child life, they are not dramas for but 
about children — plays written for adults. The 
lack of drama for the young is in strong contrast 
to the wealth of tales ; but the lack is due to 
the very nature of drama, which is above the in- 
telHgence of the ordinary child. According to 
Raphael Lowenfeld, the well-known writer and 
director of the two Schiller theaters in Berlin, 

63 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

the theater is not suited to young children; and 
the opportunity to attend performances should 
be offered only to those old enough to study a 
dramatic poem, i.e., to pupils in the upper 
classes of the common schools, where the teacher 
guides them to a comprehension of the treatment 
and meaning. He believes that if the child is not| 
old enough to be taught to see character in the 
classroom, he is certainly not old enough to 
profit by the scene upon the stage. In his own 
words : — 

To children not so far advanced the stage says 
nothing, or not the right thing. . . . The first visit 
to the theater must, for every normal child, be of 
overwhelming influence; but for that must be pre- 
supposed a great poem and ripe receptivity at the 
appropriate age. What the child has read stands 
before him again in light and color as he knows it 
in the actual world. Men of other times speak to 
him in the lofty speech of poets; deepest feelings find 
echo in the childish heart; and higher thoughts, 
which everyday life does not bring to him, now appeal 
to his understanding. ... In the positive experience 
of the first day's impression lies the starting-point 
of a spiritual development and an increase in the 
joy of living; and the negative result is of inestimable 
value for moral development. This is easily attain- 
able for the children of the rich, who see too much 
rather than too little (which is unquestionably harm- 

64 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

ful, for the impression becomes less strong), but for 
the poor, friends of art, education associations, and 
the municipahty should provide. 

The same opinion, that everyday enjoyment 
of the theater is not suitable for children, is held 
by other German writers; among them. Dr. 
Rudolf Bliimner, of Berlin, who claims that it 
should be a special event; otherwise it takes 
away from the experience that ought to belong 
to later years. 

There is a common belief [he says] that children 
are not taken often enough to see classic pieces 
at the theater. This is a mistake. The too early 
introduction to the best is almost as dangerous as 
familiarity with Uterary worthlessness; for as Grill- 
parzar has said, " The theater is no trivial school for 
the unripe." 

While we have nothing in the United States 
which parallels the work of the teachers' asso- 
ciations of Germany, various movements have 
originated here in the last few years, which, 
though differing in form, are similar in spirit, in 
that they recognize the psychological need of the 
child, the adolescent, and the adult for some form 
of dramatic entertainment. In 1897, the late 
Charles Sprague Smith founded in New York 
the "People's Institute," the aim of which, 
6s 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

according to its constitution, was "To furnish 
the people continued and ordered education in 
social science, literature, and other subjects, and 
to afford opportunities for the interchange of I 
thought." Its dramatic department was begun 
in 1 90 1, when Marshall Darrach was engaged 
for Shakespearean recitals, which proved so popu- 
lar to East - Side hearers that they were given 
to constantly increasing audiences during three ' 
successive seasons. In consequence of this suc- 
cess, regularly staged plays of Shakespeare were 
next presented, the Ben Greet Company giving 
a series of performances, including a matinee for 
children (price of admission, twenty-five cents), 
the pupils of a single high school purchasing no 
less than seven hundred tickets. 

An attempt made to organize a company of 
members of the Institute to give plays under 
professional direction was abandoned after one 
trial; and the directors next turned their atten- 
tion toward what developed into one of the most 
important features of their work — that of in- 
teresting managers in giving reduced-rate tickets, 
not only for Shakespearean but for other good 
plays. 

The eagerness with which children and mem- 
bers of various groups — labor organizations, 
66 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

department stores, etc. — availed themselves of 
such privileges, and the fact that as time went 
on an increasingly large number of plays was 
presented for approval, led to the definite or- 
ganization of a Dramatic Department. Com- 
mittees were made up of prominent men and 
women who visited theaters and reported upon 
plays; and a system was adopted for subjecting 
these to a standard test. A play might be re- 
jected for one group, though offered to others; 
as, for example, comparatively few suitable for 
adults could be recommended for school children 
of the lower grades. Thousands of wage-earners 
and children have taken advantage of these re- 
duced-rate tickets, distributed through librarians, 
school principals, heads of settlements and in- 
dustrial organizations; and not only has the sys- 
tem enabled people of limited means to see good 
performances at the price of poor ones, but it 
has served as encouragement to theater managers 
to offer better productions, and indirectly even 
made the success of certain plays. 

In the spring of 1910 the Dramatic Branch 
of the People's Institute developed into an in- 
dependent movement known as the ^'Wage- 
Earners' Theater Leagues." This organization 
was launched by theater managers themselves, 

67 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

who recognized the advantage of the large audi^ 
ence thus created from the wage-earning class 
but chafed at the rejection of certain plays. Thej 
claimed that lack of indorsement by the com- 
mittee of selection meant the failure of such plays 
upon the boards. Accordingly the new asso- 
ciation leaves out this committee, except in th^ 
case of plays offered to children, which are 
chosen, as formerly, by representatives of the 
public schools. 

In several cities, organizations now undertake 
the censoring of plays for the purpose of raising 
the standard of the stage. Among these is the 
Drama League of America, founded in Chicago 
in 1 910, which numbered in the first year more 
than twelve thousand members, and now has 
twenty-seven branches of ''centers" in other 
cities. The earliest was in Boston, where for 
some years the Twentieth Century Club had 
been active in matters pertaining to the upHft 
of conditions in local theaters. Six of the larger 
branches are ''producing centers," which issue 
their own bulletins. 

The object of these leagues is to furnish a con- 
sensus of opinion as to plays especially worth 
seeing. Committees attend first-night perform- 
ances and issue bulletins recommending such 
68 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

as have received their commendation. In this 
way parents and teachers may learn what plays 
are suitable and desirable for their young people. 
Bulletins of censure are not circulated; the spirit 
of hypercriticism is not encouraged; but when 
estimating the success attained by any given 
performance, an effort is made to discriminate 
in the credit given to playwright and actors. 
Thus is awakened an intelligent interest which 
will bring a strong, uplifting influence to bear 
upon the theater throughout the country. Pre- 
cisely such an influence came in New York from 
the MacDowell Club whose drama committee 
endeavored to *' encourage dramatists to produce, 
and managers to present, artistic drama," and, 
to this end, pledged support during the first 
three weeks' run of any new production upon 
which a favorable report had been given; other- 
wise, plays out of the usual order might have 
been withdrawn without fair trial. This com- 
mittee is now merged in the Drama League of 
New York. 

The Drama Committee of the Twentieth Cen- 
tury Club of Boston, referred to above, for five 
years (or until 1913) arranged for a series of 
high-school matinees, hiring for the purpose a 
local theater and taking nearly its entire seating 

69 






t 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

capacity for a certain number of performances.! 
It was hoped that the Boston School Department 
would eventually take the initiative, authorizing 
and arranging for similar productions, but as yeti 
this hope has not been realized. In other cities 
it is possible to trace the beginning of a move- 
ment to recognize the importance of the drama 
as a part of children's pubHc-school education. 
In New York, the School Committee has not 
only approved of a number of plays and arranged 
for the sale of tickets to pupils at a reduced price, 
but has planned a series of Shakespearean plays 
to be given in some of the large school halls by 
professional actors at a merely nominal price. 

In Hne with these really constructive efforts 
is the work of social settlements which, from the 
very beginning, have used play -giving as a 
method of education. It has been found that a 
play oftentimes furnishes the necessary incentive 
to effort on the part of young people and chil- 
dren, who will work for this as for nothing else. 
Many a settlement has its record of plays, more 
or less ambitious in character, which have been 
successfully produced. Classics, even, are at- 
tempted; nor is this surprising in view of the fact 
that the personnel of settlements includes many 
college men and women imbued with the high 
70 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

standards and the higher ideals, which have 
come to prevail in connection with college dra- 
matics. 

It is not possible here to go into the work of 
the different organizations, which, in their efforts 
to uplift and teach the masses, are making use 
in varying degree of dramatics as a means of 
accomplishing their ends; but that of a few may 
be mentioned in order to indicate the character 
of what has been done. 

Many settlements have regular dramatic 
clubs, and others give plays occasionally. Hull 
House has several dramatic associations, senior, 
junior, and children's, which give plays of Shake- 
speare, Ibsen, and Shaw; melodramas, dramatized 
stories and fairy tales, according to the interest 
manifested by the several groups. One of special 
interest some years ago was a dramatization 
of Charles W. Chesnutt's story, ''The Wife of 
His Youth," given by a company of young people 
of his own race. Groups of Greeks and Italians 
have given plays in their native languages, the 
management believing that the best way to con- 
vert members of our foreign population into good 
American citizens is to preserve and ennoble 
their national characteristics. 

Hull House has had for some years also a mov- 

71 



J 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

ing-picture show, or five-cent theater, wherein 
are presented fairy tales for children, foreign 
scenes to deHght the immigrant population, inci-? 
dents of stories which portray acts of heroism 
and convey moral lessons, and other things of 
interest. 

Settlement workers have recognized the ed- 
ucational value of drama for both sides of th 
footlights. Not only do they use it as whole 
some entertainment, but as a means for training 
speech, manners, and taste, and of intellectual 
and moral development. One of the Hull House 
workers. Miss Madge Jennison, writing of her 
experience in play-coaching in an article in the 
Atlantic Monthly, points out that the play is for 
the club, not the club for the play, and speaks of 
the harm that might result from the acceptance 
of failure in a part, and the benefit that comes 
when a child really ''arrives," and does some- 
thing she was sure she could not do. She cites 
incidents to show how interest is aroused and 
conversation carried on in terms of the play, and 
of how taste has been influenced thereby; for 
though tears may be shed at the very idea of 
giving up a ''pompadour," or wearing an old- 
fashioned gown in place of one with a pretty 
yoke, yet, in the end, esprit de corps prevails and 
72 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

the individual learns to subordinate herself in 
the interest of the group. 

In the dramatic work of the Henry Street Set- 
tlement, New York, the same ideal prevails of 
preserving the traditions of different nationali- 
ties. The children are trained to reproduce their 
various national festivals. On May Day they 
give their ancestral dances and customs, thus 
reviving the primitive rites by which man ex- 
pressed his joy in the rebirth of spring. 

Denison House, Boston, has done excellent 
work in dramatics, having given a number of 
Shakespearean plays and other classics with 
great success, not only in Boston proper, but 
in neighboring towns, as well as at Wellesley 
College. 

The Elizabeth Peabody Settlement of Boston 
has also made play-giving an important feature 
of its work. Its new building is provided with a 
well-equipped theater for its own dramatic per- 
formances and the use of neighborhood clubs. 

Similar in spirit to the dramatic work of settle- 
ments, but quite different in its inception and 
organization, was that of the *' Children's Edu- 
cational Theater," of the East Side of New York 
City, which represented a movement to counter- 

73 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

act the influence of cheap shows, by furnishing 
a substitute of educational value. It stood, how- 
ever, for something more than the mere sub- 
stitution of worthy for imworthy drama; for it 
furnished gratification for both the active and 
passive phases of the dramatic instinct, in that 
it aimed not only to meet the need of the child 
as spectator, but was alive to that of his growing 
imagination and unabsorbed energy, his need 
to express himself as creator or actor. It was 
started about a decade ago, under the auspices 
of a Jewish charitable organization, "The Edu- 
cational AlHance," which has its headquarters in 
the Russian- Jewish section of the city. It accom- 
plished its good work very quietly at first; and 
only after several years was attention turned in its 
direction, when several magazine and newspaper 
articles awakened general interest. It received 
particular notice, also, when, in November 1907, 
during the run of The Prince and the Pauper, 
with which the theater opened its regular season, 
an invitation performance was given in honor 
of Mark Twain. On that occasion President 
Eliot and other guests made speeches; and letters 
from President Hall, Professor Brander Mat- 
thews, Professor George P. Baker, and others, 
commending the work of the theater, appeared 

74 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

upon the printed programs. Not long afterward 
it again attracted notice, when, on the enforce- 
ment of the Sunday law, its Sunday afternoon 
performances had to be discontinued. 

The theater owed its beginning to Miss Minnie 
Herts, who filled a vacancy on the entertainment 
committee of the Educational Alliance, and in 
an attempt to improve upon the character of the 
entertainments previously given, and at the same 
time furnish something of educational value, 
planned the training of young people of the neigh- 
borhood in plays, choosing The Tempest for the 
first experiment. A competent trainer was put 
in charge, and after much serious work and study 
the play was produced. 

The result surpassed all expectation. Not only 
was the performance highly creditable, even 
artistic, but the effect upon both actors and 
spectators was unmistakably good. It indicated 
to the management, that a work of real educa- 
tional and socializing influence had been started, 
that would react on the whole neighborhood. 
On street corners and doorsteps, in factory and 
tenement, The Tempest was discussed. It was 
even acted out in homes, and one thousand copies 
of a cheap edition of the book were sold in the 
locality. People who during the week diligently 

75 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

plied their humble trades, toiling in sweat-shops 
or trundling push-carts along the narrow streets, 
responded to the many-sided appeal of a great 
drama. Their contracted horizons were all at 
once widened. No matter how sordid or dreary 
the surroundings, pictures of beautiful scenery 
remained in their minds, and new ideals stirred 
their imaginations. 

That the interest which had been aroused by 
this rich experience might be still further strength- 
ened. The Tempest was followed by other fine 
plays produced in similar fashion. The Forest 
Ring, Ingomar, As You Like It, Snow White, 
and The Prince and the Pauper were given as 
Simday matinees for these Jewish young people 
and children, with occasional evening perform- 
ances for adults, until the enforcement of the 
Sunday law made them impossible. Then a suc- 
cession of one-act plays for Saturday evenings 
was regularly substituted, to which flocked 
crowds of spectators, both children and adults, 
and their success was as great as that of The 
Tempest and its successors. Both actors and 
spectators entered fully into the spirit of the 
plays. The actors lived their roles during the 
many weeks of preparation and performance. 
The spectators showed their belief in the reality 

76 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

of the scenes by their excited exclamations at 
critical junctures, their outcries of warning 
against danger, and their lamentations where 
these were disregarded. Furthermore, while 
they applauded the acting of relatives and friends, 
they longed also to take part themselves. Pre- 
paratory classes grew to number many more 
members than the cast of any piece demanded; 
and these classes became the foundation and 
strength of the entire work as it progressed. A 
play was first studied as a whole, then the dif- 
ferent parts taken in detail, and later the young 
people themselves made assignment of roles by 
vote; their choice being subject to the final deci- 
sion of those in charge. 

The possibilities in these classes for indirect 
teaching soon became apparent. Each play was 
studied with reference to its literary and dram- 
atic merit, and its historical teaching. Motives 
governing the characters were considered, be- 
havior analyzed, comparisons drawn, and, as far 
as possible, morals pointed and ethical principles 
inculcated. The choice of the play depended not 
alone upon its general educational value, but 
upon the particular lessons needed by members 
of the class in training, and by the spectators. 
Each part was studied by several young people, 

n 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

so that, in case of a long run, the burden would not 
fall too heavily upon one cast; in this way, too, 
more would profit by the routine work. The thea- 
ter was run to some extent on professional lines, 
and a certain amount of business training in- 
cidentally resulted. The same methods which 
facilitate the smooth working of the business 
enterprise served for the training and develop- 
ment in various directions of many desirable 
qualities and characteristics. The young people 
learned the meaning of responsibility, and to 
systematize the part of the work which fell to 
their share. Frequently, when for some reason 
they were necessarily absent from the cast, the 
actors themselves trained the substitutes for 
their parts. They were made to feel that, in so 
doing, they must aim to make these substitutes 
outstrip their teachers. In one instance, a one- 
act play was even staged by the young people 
themselves; and the instructor, seeing it for the 
first time after it left classwork, found little to 
correct. Children had oversight of properties 
and costumes and the charge of the box office; 
and an orchestra of children played between the 
acts, giving their services in return for regular 
instruction in music. 
They learned punctuality. In a neighbor 

78 



i 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

hood where, it is said, the meaning of the word 
was previously unknown, great pride was taken 
in the fact that not once in the course of four 
whole years was the curtain rung up one minute 
late. Scene-shifters became so proficient in their 
work that one of the features of an invitation 
performance was an exhibition of their skill, the 
curtain being raised for the purpose during an 
intermission. They developed, too, a spirit of 
cooperation; and consideration of self yielded to 
zeal for the common good. If occasion demanded 
it, the hero of one play as a matter of course took 
a subordinate part in the next. 

Visitors were much impressed by the ease and 
grace of the young performers, and especially 
by their flexible English. Mrs. Burnett noticed 
it when she saw their presentation of The Little 
Princess ; and Mark Twain, who took active in- 
terest in the progress of the theater, commented 
upon it. He is reported to have said, "It seems 
that we Americans may learn to speak the Eng- 
lish language from the East Side, nearly all of 
whose citizens came to this country unable to 
speak the tongue of which they have so soon 
become master." 

It was questioned whether the wearing of the 
fine clothes, necessary to some parts, might not 

79 



II 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

make poor children discontented with their own; 
but this has been answered in the negative. It 
is claimed, moreover, that having to look after 
their stage costumes made the children more 
careful of their own. New standards of taste, 
resulted from the staging, and even penetrate 
in some cases to the homes, where simpler fur- 
nishings replaced what had been gaudy and 
pretentious. Simpler dresses worn upon the 
stage were borrowed by parents, that children 
might wear them in place of their own cheap 
finery when having their pictures taken. The 
children learned, too, that some clothes are suit- 
able for certain occasions only, and for certain 
situations in Hfe. Wealth and rank tended to 
assume more nearly their proper place; it was 
the kind heart and feeling that were appreciated 
in the Little Prince, the Little Pauper, and in 
Little Lord Fauntleroy, under the change of 
circumstances they experienced. 

The outward change in the children wrought 
by the theater, both as to physique and facial 
expression, was among its good effects. The 
little wardrobe mistress in charge of the dressing- 
room, a young girl who ruled her small domain 
with a firm hand, requiring method and order 
in all that came under her supervision, was a 
80 



I 






EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

striking example of the metamorphoses some- 
times accomplished. When one saw this alert, 
bright-eyed little business woman, it was diffi- 
cult to realize that, when she came to the theater, 
she was, as one of the force expressed it, ^'one 
of the most weazened little creatures that ever 
was." 

To illustrate further what the Children's 
Theater may possibly have accomplished for this 
same child we may mention, that when one of 
her family was seized with a severe illness, and 
other members of the household proved unequal 
to the emergency, the little girl showed a cool- 
headedness and capability that impelled the 
physician in charge to ask, "What training has 
she had? To what is all this due?" This is but 
one instance of many in which the training of the 
Children's Theater would seem to have given 
self-reliance and poise, and a better fitting for 
life. 

The Jews are a polite people and all these 

children are Jews; but surely the noticeably good 

1 manners in some cases may be traced to the in- 

i fluence of the Children's Theater. There is no 

other conclusion to be drawn, when a small boy 

stands because Miss Herts is not seated, and 

explains that in the play of Little Lord Faunt- 

8i 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

leroy he "noticed that the Earl of Dorincourt 
did.'' Changes of this nature, however, which 
impress outsiders, important though they are, 
seem to members of the management who have 
witnessed the process of transformation less 
remarkable than those wrought upon character. 
To see erect carriage take the place of crooked 
shoulders and shambling gait because of awak- 
ened ambitions and new feelings of self-respect; 
to see faces beam with aspiration and interest 
hitherto undreamed of, was to behold the work 
of the Children's Theater. The transformation 
that some of the young girls underwent was well 
illustrated when ^Op-O'-Me-Thumb was put upon 
the boards. For the parts of laundry girls, the 
modulated voices, dignified carriages, and quiet 
manner that had been painfully acquired were 
now to be discarded; strident tones, loud laugh- 
ter, tilted and protruding chins, hip and elbow 
movements were to be assumed. In short, girls 
were to reproduce something very like recent 
personal history. For this reason, it was with 
no little apprehension that the play was se- 
lected. Fear was entertained also as to the pos- 
sible reception of scenes such as that between 
Amanda and the hero by the audience. Instead, 
however, of a cheap interpretation of the young 
82 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

girFs attitude toward the trifler, the pathos of 
the situation outweighed all that was hurtful. 

A question frequently asked was, whether the 
training would not turn young people to the 
professional stage. This was never its aim, and 
apparently was not its tendency. Rather, it 
gave an outlet to the adolescent desire for dra- 
matic expression, frequently disillusioning the 
young aspirants for professional stage life, and, 
without withdrawing them from their vocations, 
fitting them to be better citizens. Not more than 
one out of a hundred was thought to have real 
dramatic talent. Stress was laid upon hard work 
and careful study to such an extent as might rob 
the stage of its attractiveness as an occupation 
for some, who might otherwise have thought only 
of its glamour. Miss Herts 's secretary, a young 
girl of the neighborhood, who had made a great 
success as heroine of one of the plays, though 
urged by managers to enter the profession, re- 
fused their offers and returned quietly to her 
typing. 

Even the taking of debased parts by youthful 
actors, concerning the effect of which opinions 
are at variance, had a prophylactic value. One 
of the children, when asked whether she liked 
playing low parts as well as the more beautiful 

83 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

characters, replied, *'I do, if the character is 
true." 

The question of the advisability of bringing 
young people of opposite sexes together in the 
more sentimental and romantic situations was 
also raised; but, according to the management, 
no bad results were noticeable. 

Though run as far as possible on business 
principles, and to crowded houses, the theater 
was, nevertheless, far from aelf-supporting. This 
is not surprising when the price of admission was 
but ten cents. The expense over and above re- 
ceipts was paid by the Educational Alliance; 
and when later the theater entered upon a new 
and independent existence, this organization con- 
tinued to lend its help by hiring the company for 
a series of plays, for which it paid a generous sum. 

The 'Children's Educational Theater" unfor- 
tunately no longer exists. After a successful 
record of five years, it was decided to enlarge the 
scope of its influence by removing it from Grand 
Street to East Eighteenth Street, where Mr. 
Robert Collier loaned a house for the purpose. 
With the change of locality, the theater became 
a regularly incorporated institution, under the 
name of ''The Children's and Young People's 
Educational Theater." Its board of directors was 

84 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

made up of people who had earlier been attracted 
to the experiment, the management remaining 
practically the same. 

Under the new regime, it was proposed to dem- 
onstrate the methods of the theater by giving 
performances in other cities under the auspices 
of various associations interested in social and 
educational advancement. A group of children 
was actually sent to Boston, where they pre- 
sented The Little Princess. But after a brief 
period the whole undertaking perished for lack 
of financial backing. The experiment, however, 
can hardly be counted among the list of failures. 
It is something to have given inspiration to other 
cities. The idea is now in the air; it may be long 
before it materializes, but the first effort has 
shown what can be done with it as a recognized 
form of settlement work. Assuredly it stands 
out as one of the best sociological achievements 
of the last ten years. ^ 

An admiring German critic of the effort sug- 

^ Lately an effort has been made to revive the Children's 
Educational Theater. It has been chartered under a new board 
of directors, and performances have been given in the Wash- 
ington Irving High School. Classes are held in various pro- 
ducing centers throughout the city. Two other organizations, 
the Educational Dramatic League and the Educational 
Players, are trying to do similar work. 

85 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

gests that it should have gone a step farther, and 
that children should have constructed their own 
plays. All we can say in reply is, that this has 
already been done in a boys club started by Sid- 
ney S. Peixotto, an experienced worker with 
boys. Aiming at a high quality of self-expression, 
he discarded classic drama as beyond the reach 
of children, claiming that the long and tiresome 
rehearsals are in themselves bad. Starting from 
charades and various crude but spontaneous 
efforts, he tried to inspire the inventive faculty 
of the boys to the production first of single 
scenes, and later to more fully developed plays. 
These, for eight years, proved a real factor in 
character-building which other work of his club 
has aimed to emphasize. The boys discussed the 
play they were about to construct, and worked 
out the plot and dialogue for themselves; and 
the development from the coarse "rough-house" 
sort to *' fascinating little comedies" is said to 
have been remarkable. 

The working-out of costumes and scenery by 
the little actors themselves might often add to 
the value of play-giving were other children's 
theaters to be established. In one technical high 
school visited by the writer, this has been done 
with great success. 

86 



I 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

Many people suppose that a children's theater 
is an extremely modern institution. In reality, 
one was started in Berlin a little over fifty years 
ago, though for a different purpose and imder 
widely different conditions. The originator was 
the poet, Baron Anton von Klesheim, author 
of the Mailufterly a collection of folk-songs. His 
first attempt at drama was a child-comedy, Der 
Erdgeist und die Wasserfee, which he wrote in his 
fiftieth year, and for the production of which he 
chose Berlin. There were many difficulties in 
the way, for the Prussian capital was then a 
small city, very unlike the Berlin of the present 
day. He needed a hundred children, and they 
were not easy to obtain; for it was necessary 
that they should be beautiful both in form and 
face; also, out of the actors of first r61es he wished 
to make miniature artists. 

The first performance was given in the theater- 
hall of one of the well-known hotels, and all the 
prominent people of Berlin were present. The 
price of the cheapest seat was four Marks. No 
expense was spared in producing the play, and 
the spectators were charmed with the acting. 
The Children's Theater became a topic of con- 
versation, and the content of the play was spread 
through all Berlin child world by these one hun- 

87 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

dred children, and reproduced wherever half a 11 
dozen of them came together. Even in school 
at recess it was a favorite game. Parents became 
infected with the enthusiasm, and in prominent 
families it was considered a great honor to have 
the children chosen to be actors. Performances 
were continued during five months, meeting with 
continuous approbation, though, financially, the 
theater was not successful. 

Another German example, for which perhaps 
the name of Children's Theater would be too 
ambitious, is that of the pla3^s afterwards given 
under the direction of an Alsatian pastor, Herr 
Pfarrer Siegfried, to meet a social need. Having 
asked the peasants why they '^carried on^' so 
in the village, one of them answered, " Because 
there is no theater." Whereupon he trained 
schoolboys to present plays. 

Only in its adaptation to educational and 
sociological purposes, therefore, is a children's 
theater a modern invention. Queen Elizabeth 
maintained boy actors as part of her household, 
where they not only formed the essential part 
of her chapel choir, but gave plays and enter- 
tainments on secular occasions. Earlier still, 
Henry VIII employed children for dramatic rep- 
resentations; and, as far back as the time of 
88 



EFFORTS TO PROVIDE GOOD DRAMA 

Edward IV, if not earlier, Children of the Chapel 
gave pageants and pantomimes for Christmas 
festivals. 

The extent of children's performances in the 
Elizabethan age was Httle known until recent 
investigations brought the facts to light. Half 
the plays of the period were produced by chil- 
dren's companies, and, in the reign of James I, 
more than half. Every great dramatist except 
Shakespeare wrote for them; some, like Chap- 
man, writing for no other. Moreover, most of 
the playwrights who wrote for both men's and 
boys' companies, gave their best efforts to the 
latter. The children, when they grew up, domi- 
nated the stage as actors, and were an influence 
in theater and drama for over fifty years. The 
moral tone of the children's plays was much the 
same as that of the others. Tragic parts were 
bombastic, comic parts frequently foul; and, 
while in some ways they may have suited the 
emotional needs of the young actors, no one 
thought of the effect upon them. Boys were mere 
puppets in the hands of their elders. 

In this matter of the dramatic training of the 
child as part of his education, America is far 
ahead of Germany, where the little ones still 
** speak pieces" on special occasions, or give a 

89 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

stupid and awkwardly acted little play before 
adoring relatives. In this country we have 
digested Froebel's maxim, ''Learn by doing," 
while Dr. Bliimner, before quoted, is still plead- 
ing with phlegmatic school directors. "Capabil- 
ity to declaim a poem," he says, ''is not a talent 
turned toward acting; it is acting. The dramatic 
art, of all arts, is the one that should be earliest 
cultivated. All little children are taught to recite 
poems; but attention has heretofore been directed 
merely to memorizing; while the slovenly speech 
and colorless expression that will hamper them 
in later years, especially in the professions, pass 
uncorrected," 



VI 



PLAY 



"Play is a certain natural joy or pleasure," says 
the Roman philosopher Seneca. Plato, before 
him, made it a means to an end, as we are try- 
ing to make it to-day: "Let early education be 
a sort of amusement; that will better enable you 
to find out the natural bent of the child." Ci- 
cero, adopting Plato's idea, considers the moral 
being as the chief end: "Only such plays should 
be allowed as never divert from righteous action." 
Of late we have begun in earnest to apply these 
sayings of the wise. New methods of psychology 
are giving greater insight into the important 
role of play in the field of the emotions, and a 
fuller sense of its significant relation to the moral 
aspect of the dramatic instinct. 

For the study of the nature, function, evolu- 
tion, development, and meaning of play, espe- 
cially with reference to this instinct, we have many 
valuable data. They come from three sources: 
the play of animals, the play of primitive peo- 

91 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

pies, and the play of civilized children. For our 
present purpose we may omit the first. 

In the numerous studies of primitive peoples 
published in recent years, the authors dwell 
much more upon games than upon informal 
play; but it is from informal play that games 
have developed. The play of little Kaffir chil- 
dren, so charmingly described by Dudley Kidd, 
in his Savage Childhood, and many of the games 
of American Indian children are imitative of the 
pursuits of their parents ; and games of both chil- 
dren and adults, in the action and gesture with 
which occupations and customs are represented, 
give abundant evidence of the strength of the 
instinct for dramatic expression among savages 
and semi-barbarous races. The native Bushmen 
show in their games a fondness for masquerad- 
ing; they dramatize events, and assume the ap- 
pearance and imitate the cries of animals and 
birds with extraordinary accuracy; their women 
put on the heads and horns of animals, and 
in the evening appear suddenly in sport among 
a group of children; their masquerading serves 
in war to deceive their enemies, and in the hunt 
to attract their prey. The Fuegians invent 
burlesque scenes, and imitate the behavior and 
cries of animals; and the Forest Veddahs, Cen- 
92 



PLAY 

tral Australians, Esquimaux, and other races 
have a passion for mimicry, frequently making 
the white man and his doings the subject of imi- 
tation and ludicrous representation. Abel, in 
an account of play in Neu-Mecklenburg (New 
Ireland) in the South Sea; Walker, in his study 
of Sioux games; and Culin, in his description of 
Hawaiian and Philippine games, tell how the 
children with javelins, whips, bows and arrows, 
wind-whirlers and popguns, dolls and doll-houses, 
imitate the doings of adults ; while some of their 
simplest baby-plays are distinctly imaginative. 
But most of our data are from material near at 
hand. We study the children of our own coim- 
try at different ages, that we may provide for 
their play interests, and in certain cases correlate 
play with school work. No hard-and-fast Hne 
can be drawn between what is fit for one age and 
what for another; the interests of one pass into 
the next, and some continue through life. Espe- 
cially is this true of the dramatic interest. Chil- 
dren's love of acting out their own ideas and of 
imitating begins, as everybody knows, in baby- 
hood. Even before they can speak, mimetic 
action is the natural means of communication; 
and they imitate the movements, expression, 
speech, and other sounds of their elders. A little 

93 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

kter comes play with toys; and later still an 
infinite variety of dramatic and imitative plays 
of their own invention, which interest far more 
than formal games. Their play covers the entire 
range of their knowledge and experience. Even 
at the age of ten or twelve, when free active play 
gives way in great measure to formal games, 
dramatic and imitative ones have the chief I 
place; and the circus, the minstrel show, and' 
Indian-hunting are among the favorites. Then 
they begin to form secret societies, and have 
rituals and ordeals. They play at being bandits, ^ 
and form gangs. Actual burglary and train- 
wrecking by children are examples of dramatic 
instinct gone wrong. 

Statistics show clearly that the more dramatic 
the games, the more popular they are. The study 
of their origin is profoundly interesting. "Puss 
in the Corner," ''London Bridge," and many 
well-known ring games are full of dramatic ele- 
ments derived from old folk- tales and sagas, 
which vividly reproduced the real spirit and life 
of the people. Many are survivals of old cere- 
monies and beliefs; some are remnants of village 
customs and funeral rites; others of border war- 
fare, of courting and various forms of tribal mar- 
riage, as by purchase or capture. To the last 

94 



4 



PLAY 

has been traced the game of "Three Dukes"; 
to the first, that of "Sleeping Beauty," derived 
from a drama of the spring myth. Guessing 
games are a survival of primitive philosophy, of 
the art of divination and sorcery; and imitation 
of animal sports and games of the chase and war 
go back to a remote past, where the destruction 
of prey and of human enemies was man's most 
important occupation. "The fighting and chas- 
ing instinct," says James, "must have been in- 
grained." The inherent force in all these games, 
that has made them persist from generation to 
generation, has been identified as "the dramatic 
faculty inherent in mankind." 

In recent years, progressive courses of plays 
and games adapted to diifferent ages have been 
carefully worked out, and a great nmnber of them 
published; — in some cases by school depart- 
ments in connection with instruction in physical 
education, as in Boston and Providence. They 
include simple acts such as warming the hands, 
walking up hill, climbing, etc. A large number 
fall under the head of animal imitation, as a cat 
chasing a mouse, an elephant raising his trunk, 
the leaping of a kangaroo, the crowing of a rooster, 
the chirping and flying of birds. Industrial oc- 
cupations furnish a great variety, as of the farmer 

95 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

picking apples, sowing seed, and harvesting; the 
carpenter sawing wood, driving nails; the engi- 
neer testing his throttle; the workman digging 
and shoveling; soldiers drilling and firing. Out- 
door sports and pastimes, such as ball-plajdng, 
swimming, rowing, golf-playing, throwing sticks 
into trees for chestnuts and apples, and picking 
flowers, are brought into the schoolroom. Chil- 
dren are even taught to imitate movements in 
nature, as the fluttering and whirling of leaves, 
the falling of raindrops, the swaying of tree- 
tops, a windstorm, flowing water, and many 
others in which an idea rather than an object is 
simulated. 

Good as all this may be, it nevertheless shows 
a tendency to direct the plays so far that they 
become stereotyped, and tend to repress rather 
than develop the dramatic instinct of the child 
It has already been carried to extremes. For 
example, children playing at picking apples are 
told to raise themselves high on their tiptoes, 
stretch the right arm high and bend the head 
backwards, pick the apple, lower the heels, and 
bring the right hand down to the left across the 
chest. This is repeated several times; then the 
left hand and arm are brought into play, that 
uniform development may result. Evidently the 

96 






PLAY 

fact is here lost sight of, that, whereas physical 
exercise may profitably proceed according to 
well-defined rules, the same precision and direc- 
tion cannot be applied to play without robbing 
it of interest. One would scarcely venture to 
regulate each step and gesture of children taking 
part in a regularly staged drama; yet these imi- 
tative plays are of the nature of individual epi- 
sodes that might find place in any Httle acted 
scene. If the purpose of such imitative play, 
namely, to cultivate spontaneity and give emo- 
tional tone to healthful exercise, be kept clearly 
in mind, the advantage of directing the child's 
thoughts to the thing to be done, rather than 
to the method of doing it, will be readily per- 
ceived. 

But it is especially in the involuntary play 
that is all about us, irrepressible in every normal 
child, that the instinct for dramatic expression 
is clearly revealed. Almost every day on a cer- 
tain university campus, the writer sees examples 
of it. A bit of red cloth on one of the terraces 
is the flag of a portcullis, and a small toboggan 
projecting from the veranda and lowered and 
raised at intervals serves as drawbridge; and a 
boy who takes his turn at working it will only 
answer for weeks at a time to the name of ^'Sir 

97 



)N I 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

Galahad/' and can best be directed morally by 
appealing to his knighthood. 

Miss Luella Palmer, of the Speyer School, 
Teachers College, New York, tells of an invol- 
untary play carried out there one morning before 
the opening of school (it also shows how games 
originate). A little girl told her that some one 
had brought a rabbit. On investigating, she 
found some of the children forming a cage, while 
two others were impersonating rabbits, — one 
the mother, the other the baby rabbit. The 
principal actor made believe to feed the rabbits, 
and stroked their heads. From this resulted a 
game regularly played afternoons, called ''The 
Wild and Tame Rabbit." 

Mrs. Gomme tells a story of her own little boy, 
who, when told to come out from under the table 
where he was rubbing his head against the pedes- 
tal, said: "But I'm not a little boy, I'm a cow; 
and it's not a table, it's a tree, and I'm rubbing 
my horns." 

Mr. Jacob Riis has said that the dramatic 
tendency of the small child finds its food in New 
York chiefly in the drama of arrest; and Mr. 
Joseph Lee says that, in Boston, "acting fu- 
neral" is one of the popular amusements; which 
proves two facts that must be taken into account 

98 






PLAY 

by educational institutions: (i) that city chil- 
dren are not without the dramatic instinct to 
make real to themselves the life about them, by 
acting it out; (2) that this very real force is 
at present being perverted, and therefore needs 
direction. These children want a fair chance, 
he says, and judicious suggestion, to turn their 
strivings for the realization of life in a better 
direction. The large imitative factor in the 
dramatic play of children makes it a rare edu- 
cational instrument, which, besides, emphasizes 
the oft - repeated lesson of the importance of 
the right environment for the child. That the 
interest in funerals as processions and as games 
is not peculiar to Boston is proved by numerous 
instances of the sort collected by many experts 
in child-study. It appears that death and fu- 
nerals, sometimes of cherished pets, elicit more 
specialized, detailed, and spontaneous accounts 
than any other subject; and it is evident that 
imitative, emotional, and dramatic elements 
here find expression. The interest of children in 
actual funerals is well illustrated by the remark 
of a small boy of four, whose home happens to 
be near a church; who, standing one day at the 
window, murmured sadly, "Nossing to do, no 
fun, no funerals.'' 

99 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

In the Invisible Playmate, Mr. William Canton 
tells how his child had always to be seated on the 
same knee, as the opposite one was occupied in 
fancy by " another little girl " ; and how in a rail- 
way station he had to lift the child high up to 
the engine front, that she might "stroke its dear 
head." 

''Let's pretend," appeals to all, and needs no 
rules for young or old. Here imagination and 
imitation work together. With some few people, 
imagination is, unfortunately, lacking; others 
have it in rich abundance and retain it through 
life. The ability to imagine and pretend has I 
helped people over many a sorry situation. 
Lieutenant Shackleton and his men, picturing 
savory menus, in their Barmecide feasts; Beau 
Brummel, in his days of poverty and desertion, 
trying to preserve appearances to himself; Mrs. 
Burnett's little heroine, Sara Crewe, forgetting 
hunger, cold, and loneliness in her attic chamber 
while she plays at being a princess, are illustra- 
tive instances from real life and fiction. Appeal 
to the dramatic instinct in play is one of the most 
powerful means of influencing boys in the pre- 
adolescent period. Many of the most successful 
Sunday schools have drills in which banners, 
swords, and caps play a part; and the appeal is 
loo 



PLAY 

distinctly to the love of impersonation, ritual, 
mystery, and parade. These drills exercise the 
play instinct and afford opportunity also for the 
constructive, in making regalia, banners, swords, 
and various appurtenances. In the association 
for boys called " Ejiights of King Arthur," orig- 
inated by Dr. Forbush, the boys gather about 
the Round Table, the king at the head with Mer- 
lin (the adult leader), and the various officers in 
their places, while a short and impressive ritual 
service is performed. So great is the interest of 
boys in initiations, that they will even forego a 
ball-game to take part. The "Brotherhood of 
David," on similar lines, is for younger boys, as 
is also the order of the ''Wood Craft Indians," 
devised by Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton ''to di- 
rect and systematize the fever for playing 'In- 
dian' during the so-called savage period of boy- 
hood." Another organization that utilizes the 
same principles and appeals strongly to the love 
of the dramatic, though by a more meager use 
of symbolism, is the "Boys' Brigade" started 
in 1883 by Lieutenant W. M. Smith, of Glasgow, 
who found that the power of accouterments, even 
though they consisted only of a cap and belt, 
over boys who could not otherwise be interested 
in Sunday school, was strong; and that many 

lOI 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

transformations of character were effected by 
turning boys into "privates." 

The *'Boy Scout" movement, of a more secu- 
lar character, also turns the love of dramatici 
action to definite account, by arousing the sense 
of chivalry and resourcefulness in practical and 
beneficial ways. Founded by General Baden-I 
Powell some years ago, with the idea that boys 
in the home country might imitate the deeds of 
the real boy scouts at Mafeking, youngsters are 
taught to follow trails, pitch camps, render first 
aid, etc. ; so that in time of emergency, it is now 
not unusual to see uniformed boys appear, has- 
tily improvise a stretcher, and bear away the 
victim of an accident. There are a few move- 
ments for girls on similar lines, none of which, 
however, has as yet reached anything like the 
proportions attained by those for boys. 

Only recently have educators hit upon the 
way, long since pointed out by Plato: "Educa- 
tion should begin with the right direction of 
children's sports"; and, as usual, the Germans 
have been the first to enter it. They were aroused 
by the signs of race deterioration in army recruits, 
and set about devising means to prevent it. 
They have contributed more than any other 
people to the scientific knowledge of the subject; 

102 



I 



PLAY 

but Americans have taken it up with ardor, and 
are fast popularizing it. In active propaganda 
they have outstripped their teachers. Several 
decades ago, they began a movement for general 
physical education. They established floating 
swimming - baths and vacation schools. They 
secured reservations in parks and in the slum 
sections of cities for play spaces and athletic 
fields, and, much later, some municipal play- 
grounds well equipped and supervised. They 
formed a National Playground Association, by 
means of which, together with local societies, the 
work has, within a few years, expanded enor- 
mously. It has been so exploited by periodicals 
and press that an extended review of its methods 
is unnecessary here. Suffice it to say that already 
it is recognized as one of the most efficient means 
of making good citizens that has yet been de- 
vised. 

One of the ways in which the Playground 
Association has rendered especially valuable 
service is in outhning a *' Normal Course in 
Play," useful in training social workers as well as 
teachers; since it gives insight into the impor- 
tance of play evolutionally, both on the physical 
and mental side, emphasizing its great function 
emotionally, and showing the general principles 
103 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 1| 

which govern its educational uses and applica- 
tions. ,, 

England, so long a leader in athletics, is mov- |l 
ing but slowly in this direction. Her schools have 
always provided for play under the guidance and 
encouragement of their masters. Her interest 
in municipal playgrounds has hitherto meant 
merely the provision of space for sports; but 
social settlement workers are now creating many 
of the American t3^e. Glasgow is said to have 
founded the first municipal playground with full 
modern equipment in the world. She has now 
more than a dozen, and provides for their super- 
vision. 

In other countries the movement is well under 
way. In Italy, where as yet it is principally on 
paper, a congress was held in 1902 in Turin, 
when the Italian Minister of Education appointed 
well-known men to undertake it. France has 
done little more; but open playgrounds have 
been established in and about Paris and in some 
of the small manufacturing towns. The work is 
beginning in Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Den- 
mark, and Sweden, and even in far Japan. 

The supervision of play, so necessary in the 
public playgrounds and recreation centers in the 
slums, has reacted upon the schools. Teachers 
104 



i 



PLAY 

and children now play together during recess in 
ring games, etc. But there is danger that super- 
vision may crowd out spontaneity and freedom 
of expression. To tell children "to look as though 
they were enjoying it/' "not to have so sour a 
face," "to smile," etc., is to prevent the very 
results desired. A little suggestion, a Httle help 
and reassurance, and sympathy with the chil- 
dren's efforts to represent their own ideas are 
better than any admonition. 

Yet there is at times urgent need of fostering, 
even apparently of implanting, the play spirit. 
Work is sometimes as good as play for develop- 
ing the imitative and dramatic instinct. But 
city life has taken away so many opportunities 
for both work and play, that even the play spirit 
has to be revived. It has been found that the 
children of certain regions in the country, as 
well as in the city, show no inclination to play. 
Here is a fundamental problem to be dealt with 
in the attempt to create good citizenship; since 
lack of the play instinct too frequently means 
arrested development or is a symptom of men- 
tality below the normal. Children in institutions, 
such as orphan asylums, even where facilities 
for play may not be lacking, usually need super- 
vision and leadership in play and games. The 
los 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

restricted life, the lack of family affection, the ! 
strict discipline, and monotonous routine all tend 
to deprive them of spontaneity and initiative; 
and they need to be aroused and stimulated, 
emotionally as well as physically. The chief ends 
to be sought are, oftentimes, forgetfulness of 
other days, happiness and contentment. 

In the treatment of defectives, various forms of 
play are of value. The influence of manual dexter- 
ity and physical exercise on mental development 
is well brought out in the study of such cases. 

For delinquent children it has also proved 
valuable. It has been found that the girls put 
into reform schools know almost nothing of play; 
and there is need of building up the body and 
implanting a desire for healthful recreation. The 
chief thing with such girls is to make them forget 
their past; but this is a psychological impossi- 
bility, unless you can crowd out old thoughts 
and ideas by suppl3dng new and interesting ones. 
Daily institutional life presents few spurs for the 
imagination; and for uneducated girls the appeal 
of art and reHgion, and the sublimation of old 
interests, is often impracticable. But play 
changes the trend of ideas, and furnishes mate- 
rial upon which the imagination may work with 
safety and profit. 

1 06 



PLAY 

It has been found, too, that most truant and 
reform-school boys do not know how to play as 
do others of their age; so that for delinquent 
boys, no less than girls, play may be made a 
powerful factor for awakening new ambitions 
and ideals, giving their thoughts an entirely new 
trend, and steadying the emotions. 

While results cannot as yet be given statisti- 
cally, there is a widespread feeling that the well- 
conducted playground is a means of lessening 
crime. A juvenile crime map of a section of Chi- 
cago, made at Hull House a few years ago by Mr. 
Allen Burns, gives the number of cases in the 
Juvenile Court before and after parks and play- 
grounds were established in a particular neigh- 
borhood; it shows a lessening of juvenile crime 
in a period of three years of about thirty per cent 
within a half - mile radius of the playground. 
Police officers testify that arrests are fewer after 
playgrounds have been opened. Gangs of boys 
that have been the terror of certain neighbor- 
hoods have been effectually broken up; and this 
one result is well worth the money appropriated 
for playground purposes. Naturally, juvenile- 
court judges are strong advocates of the play- 
ground movement. 

Employers realize that it is a paying invest- 
107 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

ment to provide for laborers suitable opportuni-'| 
ties for recreation. In the same way, where play 
is plentifully interspersed with school work, the 
children accomplish much more than when their 
lesson periods are long, unbroken, and unen- 
livened. For delicate children, the gain is un- 
deniable. 

The Juvenile Protective League, founded in 
Chicago in 1909 to supersede the Juvenile Court 
Committee, recognizes the play instinct in its 
efforts to keep children from becoming delin- 
quents. It has divided the city into districts, 
in each of which a paid officer looks after the 
play and amusements of the children during their 
leisure hours, and thus removes them from the 
temptation and danger of the crowded streets. 
The idea was not original, for a similar attempt 
had been previously made in Basle, Switzer- 
land, and still exists. 

In stud3dng the various phases of the new 
interest in play and the quickened sense of its 
value, one can but feel that the outlook is en- 
couraging. Undoubtedly in some cases there is 
a tendency to overcurricularize and overdirect 
plays and games, and a failure to discriminate 
between children who have no play initiative 
and those who do not require aid at every turn. 
108 



i 



PLAY 

These mistakes are natural at the beginning of 
a movement, even when it is founded upon an 
enlarged understanding of its biological and psy- 
chological significance; but they compel the 
reminder that play cannot be correlated with all 
school subjects, nor can the spirit of play be 
brought into all appointed tasks; while a proper 
alternation of play and work is vital. 

Doubtless there will be more or less of a reac- 
tion from the excessive application of the play 
principle as a panacea for all the evils of the 
social system; yet this cannot affect the real 
issue, since the foundations upon which it rests 
are scientifically sound. 



VII 



DANCING 



n 



Dancing is the rhythmic movement of the hu- 
man body, with or without the accompaniment 
of music. The regular recurrence of the same 
movement without break or jar is what is meant 
by rhythm. Nature moves in rhythms. The 
earth's rotation and revolution, the sequence of 
the tides, the birth, Hfe, and death of plants and 
flowers, the unconscious activities of mind and 
body, are all rhythmic. No wonder, then, that 
conscious rhythmic expression is one of the 
earliest attainments of man, that it has held 
an important place in all nations, and appeals 
powerfully to every human being. 

With primitive peoples to - day, where lan- 
guage is more or less inadequate for the expres- 
sion of emotion, the dance with its accompany- 
ing gesture has an important r61e. It had the 
same in ancient times. It was closely bound up 
with daily life, and special dances were connected 
with almost every custom and event. Evil spirits 
were exorcised and gods propitiated, initiations, 
no 



DANCING 

marriages, and other tribal rites were solem- 
nized, to the accompaniment of the dance; events 
of chase and battle were represented and com- 
memorated; victories celebrated; grief over fail- 
ure and defeat, and the most savage revenge, 
found their expression and relief. In their ghost- 
dance, the American Indians entered into com- 
munion with their dead; the Zunis celebrated 
the coming of the solstices with a ceremonial 
dance; and the Australians their victories with a 
corroboree, of which the movements were so care- 
fully formulated that the dancer who made a 
misstep was punished. 

Dancing was early associated with religion. 
The temple dances of the Egj^tians imitated 
the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies. 
Those which formed a part of the festivals in 
honor of Isis and Osiris expressed joy and grati- 
tude after harvest. In Greece, dancing was from 
the first a form of worship, and, as is well 
known, played a part, through its union with 
music and poetry, in the development of the 
drama. Plato thought that it should be regulated 
by law. Authorities agree that it was an impor- 
tant factor in producing the noble Greek civi- 
lization. Greek dancing included exercises for 
strength and grace. Classic writers make men- 
III 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

tion of a great variety of forms, and, in addition, 
records are furnished by the drawings on Greek 
pottery and by Greek sculpture. It is even pos- 
sible to see survivals of the ancient dances to-day i 
in Crete. For the most part, they were simple 1 
in character and gentle in movement. f 

The Romans in their early history danced 
little, and that in religious rites, men only taking 
part. Later, they held military and rural dances; 
and, later still, pantomimes and the mimetic 
dance came into great favor. Roman dancing 
never reached so high a development as that of 
the Greeks, although, as with the latter, it was I 
a part of festivals. The more highly elaborated 
and refined dancing of the Augustan age was 
largely borrowed from the Greek. 

Dancing is frequently referred to in the Bible. 
Miriam danced at the fall of Pharaoh, and David 
danced before the Ark; Jephthah's daughter 
went out to meet her father in a dance of wel- 
come, and Herodias's daughter danced before 
Herod at feasts. 

In the Orient, too, we find dancing accessory 
to religious ceremonies, as well as a feature of 
social life. All Oriental dancing has certain in- 
dividual characteristics. It consists largely of 
swaying and posturing, rather than of move- 

112 



DANCING 

ment from place to place. It is generally sym- 
bolic and mimetic; as an art, it is more highly 
developed than singing. 

In India, the oldest writings mention the danc- 
ing of girls in the sacred rites. Dancers were also 
employed for entertainment in private houses 
and for public festivals. They formed a separate 
class and began their training at a very early 
age. 

With peasants of every country dancing is the 
greatest of all pastimes. It is particularly the 
resource of oppressed peoples, whose monoto- 
nous and blank lives, without other inspiration, 
find in the dance an emotional relief. Nearly all 
their mental stimulus comes from it. It embodies 
their traditions; and, combined with the folk- 
song, has historic, literary, and patriotic value. 

In Scandinavia, dance-songs have come down 
from the time of the vikings. They are lively and 
picture very dramatically love and courtship. 
Over four hundred are still known. Peasant 
dancing in Russia is of ancient Slavonic origin. 
It represents a love drama in the form of a dance- 
song performed with great joy and abandon, 
though no instrument is used as an accompani- 
ment. In Spain, a great variety of ancient dances 
may be seen to-day in their own environment, 

113 



on|| 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

or as brought together at fair-time in Seville, 
when groups of men and women from all the 
different provinces perform their dance-songs 
Vine-dressers, muleteers, water-carriers, goat- 
herds, fishermen, shepherds, and forest-dwellers 
go through dances of all grades, from the proud 
and stately movements of Castile to the wild 
''hot- blooded" dances of the South, some of 
which overstep the bounds of decency. In Italy 
dancing is a favorite diversion; the tarantella 
figures as prominently in the south as the sal 
terello, or dance of the gardeners and vintners, in 
Rome. In Germany, especially in Bavaria, many 
interesting peasant dances are found. The 
Schuh plattler, with its forty or more varieties 
is one of the principal pastimes in the highland 
regions. Doubtless the Angles and the Saxons 
brought their folk-dances with them to England. 
The ''morris" in the days of "Merrie England" 
was one of the most common. According to some 
accounts, it was brought from Spain by John of 
Gaunt in the time of Edward III, and is of Moor- 
ish origin. It was connected with May -Day 
celebrations. The characters were usually taken 
from old English legends and romances, and 
varied according to the locality; though Robin 
Hood, Little John, the Hobby-horse, the Fool, 
114 



I DANCING 

and Friar Tuck were generally ambng them. 
Dancing around the Maypole was practiced in 
London as well as in the country; and other of 
the folk-dances were adopted in the high circles 
of society. Dancing was a feudal custom. Judges 
danced annually on Candlemas Day at Ser- 
geants' Inn; and Benchers in the great Inns of 
Court held their privileges on condition that they 
danced about the fire, singing. In the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth, a great number and variety 
of dances were introduced. She herself was de- 
voted to the art and is said even to have kept an 
ambassador waiting while she finished her exer- 
cise. 

In the Middle Ages, the introduction of mys- 
tery plays brought dances again into the service 
of religion, and even into the cathedrals. But 
they soon fell into disrepute, and were banished 
from church and city, though the peasants still 
delighted in them. To a limited extent, in some 
Catholic countries, church dances were custom- 
ary as late as the seventeenth century; and 
in Seville, at high festivals to-day, boys in six- 
teenth - century costumes perform before the 
high altar a quaint, reverent and impressive 
dance to the accompaniment of beautiful minor 
strains. 

115 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

The scenic or dramatic dances of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, called *^ ballets," were 
stories set to music, and were independent en- 
tertainments very unlike the ballets of modern 
opera. They began in Italy, where in 1489, at 
the Duke of Milan's marriage with Isabella of 
Aragon, one was given in her honor. 

In France, many dances of other nations were 
adopted, refined, developed, and returned to their 
own countries to become generally the fashion. 
Dancing flourished there in the days of knight- 
hood, and some of the French queens were skilled 
performers. In the sixteenth century the slow 
and graceful movements of some of the figures, 
as of the minuet, became the very poetry of 
motion. ; 

In the eighteenth century in all countries, ' 
elaborate and dignified dances were replaced by 
simpler ones. Quadrilles and contra-dances came 
into favor, and many peasant dances were \ 
adopted by the upper classes and made the fash- 
ion. Such were the gavotte, a French provincial 
dance; the polka, introduced from Bohemia; and | 
the waltz, a German modification of the Italian 
volta. 

So all peoples, high and low, have danced 
themselves down to the present day. Almost all 
116 



DANCING 

the old feudal and court forms have disappeared; 
but the dance of the people has been more per- 
sistent, and has supplanted in modern ballrooms 
the aristocratic forms. 

As a part of the recent revival of folk-art, 
many of the old dances are being sought out and 
revived. Since 1891, three international con- 
gresses have been held for the purpose of reviving 
and preserving national dances. More especially 
in England, France, and Sweden has the move- 
ment taken root. Bringing back these dances 
is, as one writer points out, but ''restoring to the 
people something of their own creation, an in- 
heritance of gayety and good will that by some 
mischance had been mislaid, . . . the unconscious 
expression of their very soul and character." 
At the same time they are, for the cultured 
classes, a vivid bringing back of the simplicity 
and freshness of days when village ballads and 
dances were the expression of pure emotion. 
Wherever they have been revived, they have 
made for health and cheerfulness. To shop- 
workers they have given a new plasticity, which 
has reacted favorably upon mind as well as body. 
Some of the working-girls, who have first learned 
these dances and then gone out to teach them 
to others, have been practically made over; and 
117 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

all have improved in character and physique jj 
well-nigh beyond beHef. The effect on the boy 
members of a club into which the dances were 
introduced, boys described as "rowdy, good- 
humored Londoners/' is no less striking. Says 
one observer, ''They have been renewed by the 
exercise which they follow with untiring zest, 
from vague and turbulent people, a terror to the 
peaceful wayfarer, into at least the makings of 
responsible citizens"; and the children of the 
villages have been changed from ''mute and 
unresponsive creatures into tuneful and eager , 
ones." 

The head of an English school for training 
teachers in physical culture says that dances are 
bound to replace to a large extent certain forms 
of drill. "They bring every muscle into play, 
they are danced for the love of dancing, and more 
than all they are never dull." In the elementary 
schools, especially the Poor - Law schools, they 
bring freshness into school tasks and happiness 
into playtime, while in Quaker communities 
they have accomplished a revolution. In fact, all 
England, rich and poor, noble and simple, old 
and young, has taken to the dance. 

In the United States, both social dancing and 

folk-dancing have found place, and serve a good 

Ii8 



i 






DANCING 

purpose in preserving for immigrants the tra- 
ditions of their own countries. In Greenwich 
House Settlement, New York, on May-Day, chil- 
dren in costume perform various folk-dances 
upon the asphalt of the street, their elders look- 
ing on with great interest. Folk-dances have had 
their share in the development of the playground 
movement; and, in each of the congresses of the 
National Playground Association, groups of chil- 
dren going through their exercises have proved 
the most pleasing feature of the exhibitions, 
giving, according to one observer, more inspira- 
tion in a few minutes than did the addresses- 
of an entire day. 

In the educational pageants that have lately 
come into vogue, folk-dancing has been promi- 
nent. For physical training, it is greatly in de- 
mand as a supplement to gymnastic work, bring- 
ing in an element of interest in exercises which 
afford no opportunity for emotional expression. 
Something is claimed for it, too, by way of illu- 
minating history and geography and other sub- 
jects in schools. 

While the value of teaching children these 

dances is for the most part undisputed, we hear 

an occasional remonstrance. A writer in the 

American Playground maintains that ^'the steps 

119 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

and movements of such dances are as clearly out 
of sympathy with American instincts as their 
sentiment is out of sympathy with American 
ideas. . . . They fail to interest us because they 
are unfamiliar, and we can understand the pan- 
tomime only superficially. Moreover, European •' 
folk-dance is crude and gross, and representative 
of the life of the ilHterate masses, containing the j 
expression of an ideal that is foreign to our life, 
instinct, and education." He considers our own 
contra-dances immeasurably superior, " the prod- 
uct of the drawing - room, rather than of the 
stable." They have to do with ideals rather than 
ideas, and are quite as valuable for exercise; 
containing all that the foreign dances do, but 
in more acceptable form. 

This criticism is not without just grounds. 
It is often true that in teaching folk-dances, no 
psychological connection is made with the past, 
and the training is merely mechanical. Miss 
Caroline Crawford tells of how a beautiful old 
mourning-dance was introduced into a school 
without any explanation of its meaning, and 
developed into a poise dance, purely gymnastic. 
She tells of a Maypole dance which she saw in a 
city park, and condemned as a stiff and mechan- 
ical performance, and contrasts with it a May- 

120 



DANCING 

pole party of a very different order. Studying the 
origin of the Maj^ole tree, in mythology and 
allegory, and its great fundamental symbolism 
of the origin of life, she replaced the regulation 
ribbon- trimmed pole by a live blossoming tree, 
under which little naiads and dryads acted a 
little drama, each planting a tiny tree and offer- 
ing gifts to it, one the sun, another the rain, a 
third the wind. The children worked out their 
own ideas of how the tree grew by means of these 
gifts, and what was best for it, developing under 
suggestion their own emotional expression before 
they danced out the story. 

Public schools are adding dancing to their 
courses in physical exercise. In Boston, formal 
gymnastics are restricted to the five upper 
grades. For the younger children, games, story- 
plays, and physical exercises so shade into one 
another that often one might be called the other. 
Here are introduced play and dancing appro- 
priate to each month in the year. Starting with 
simple rhythmic movements, such as hand-clap- 
ping and singing, to waltz and polka music, and 
hopping in time from one foot to the other, the 
pupils gradually advance to more difficult exer- 
cises. They roll imaginary marbles to measured 
time, stooping and rising together. The skipping 

121 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

of jolly seamen, the rolling of a ship, the high- 
stepping of horses, the attitudes of dancing-girls, 
and the movements of skaters, are imitated; 
also the movements of swaying trees, the flow- 
ing of a brook, the fluttering of leaves, and the 
bending of meadow grass. In all this there is a 
great similarity to the exercises that find place 
in the attempts to curricularize play; but the 
point to be noted is, that a sense of rhythm is 
cultivated, and dancing-steps and miming are 
introduced. 

In the schools of Providence, Rhode Island, 
dancing is introduced under the head of *' Rhyth- 
mic exercises." In Chicago it is not yet an or- 
ganized part of pubHc-school work, but it ap- 
pears in the curriculum of a number of private 
schools: in the Chicago Latin School for Girls; 
in the University of Chicago Elementary School, 
and in the High School of the same institution. 
The practice was begun in the Dewey School 
more than ten years ago. In the High School, it 
was introduced largely for sociological reasons, 
to counteract the clique spirit fostered by socie- 
ties and fraternities and by race prejudice. Folk- 
dancing is taught in the upper grades; and while 
at first it was not popular with the older boys, 
they have since become the majority in the 

122 



I 



DANCING 

classes. The results are seen in better manners, 
greater concentration, alertness, coordination of 
physical and mental powers, as well as in grace 
and suppleness of body. 

In the New York public schools, dancing has 
had a place since 1905. Afternoon classes for 
girls of the lower grades were first started as an 
experiment by philanthropic workers; teachers 
who volunteered their services received lessons, 
and gave instruction in their turn to pupils. 
The school board permitted the use of school 
gymnasiums. Classes for both teachers and pupils 
have been eagerly sought, and their number 
has rapidly increased. Many dancing-steps are 
taught in the grades in connection with the regu- 
lar physical exercises, so that children enter 
these afternoon classes prepared for the lessons 
there received. In addition, mixed evening 
classes have been organized and successfully 
carried out in recreation centers, where the school 
board furnishes buildings, piano, and pianist. 

Folk-dancing is especially valuable as a solu- 
tion of the problem of providing proper physical 
exercise for girls. Dr. Gulick points out that this 
is a very different problem from providing it for 
boys; for while much the same demands are now 
made on both sexes, the preparation has been 
123 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

along entirely dissimilar lines. He reminds us 
that, besides the primary bodily differences, 
many others as to function and structure are to 
be noted; as, the difference in skeleton, muscle- 
fiber, and amount of oxygen required; also that 
for centuries their respective occupations and 
activities have been distinct, boys being trained 
to hunting, throwing, striking, and running, while 
the muscles used in these exercises have not been 
developed to any extent in girls. This difference 
in training has led to different traits of character. 
Hence, in selecting dances, besides the physio- 
logical end in view, a sociological one is not lost 
sight of; group work that will cultivate cooper- 
ation and loyalty, traits not always found in 
girls, is advocated to offset the team-play which 
is of acknowledged value in the training of boys. 
Dancing seems to have found an assured place 
in g3rmnasium practice and dramatic work in 
colleges for women. Wellesley has made dra- 
matic dancing a special feature of her commence- 
ment entertainments. With a Greek myth for 
basis, or some other beautiful tale, the dancers 
weave their spell on some hill or dale of the 
beautiful grounds, while the sun is setting on 
a summer afternoon. One year, the spectators 
sat on a knoll facing a long level sweep of lawn. 
124 



ii 



r 



DANCING 



A large fir tree at one side served for greenroom, 
from which issued individual dancers. From 
the far distance came a group representing the 
ocean, surging along in great waves of light- 
green drapery, falHng upon the ground at inter- 
vals, the tossing and waving of their white scarfs, 
imitating the foam on wave-tops, and covering 
them as they fell. At another time, a young 
woman marvelously represented the wind as she 
sped furiously over the ground, making a picture 
to compare with some Greek statue with wind- 
swept garments. Once the dance dramatized the 
story of Narcissus and Echo. Wood and water 
nymphs in green and brown came in groups from 
over the hill above one of the campus pools; now 
this group, now that, moving to the water's edge. 
Masses of color, blue, pink, lavender, and yellow, 
drew near over the green slope, gradually be- 
coming distinguishable as forms as they danced 
to its foot and were mirrored in the dark waters. 
Whatever the subjects chosen, they furnished 
scenes long to be remembered. 

A visit to the gymnasium of the college in 
winter shows the practice which leads up to the 
outdoor rehearsals in the spring. Here, Miss Hill, 
the instructor who introduced this aesthetic or 
"natural" dancing at Wellesley, put her pupils 
I2q 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

through their five-finger exercises, so to speak, 
giving them in a few lessons the various notes, 
which, later, they were to combine. Very little 
actual teaching of steps was apparent. The girls 
seemingly followed in their movements the in- 
structor's leadership, or were guided by the 
character of the accompanying music. ■ 

In similar manner pupils of Jacques Dalcroze, 
at Hellerau, near Dresden, interpret musical 
compositions by the dance; but they do so only 
after they have mastered a definite and carefully 
worked-out method known as ''Eurhythmies." 
Originally intended for his music pupils, he now 
claims for his system a wider application. With 
the aid of the psychologist, M. Claparede, he is 
placing it upon a scientific basis, maintaining 
''that it trains the nervous and muscular sys- 
tems, bringing body and brain into closer coor- 
dination, developing powers of attention, con- 
centration, and will, giving understanding and 
self-reliance, and helping to regain natural 
powers of expressiveness." 

Almost every social settlement recognizes danc- 
ing as a powerful agency in counteracting the 
influences of the dance - hall. At Hull House 
dancing-classes have been held from the earliest 
days both for advanced pupils and beginners; 
126 



DANCING 

and in them the rules of conventional society are 
enforced. To quote from the Hull House Year- 
Book for 1906, "The residents of Hull House 
are increasingly convinced of the value of dancing 
as a recreative pleasure to young people engaged 
in the monotonous work of modern industry, 
too often entirely sedentary, or of a character 
which calls for the use of but few muscles. The 
well-regulated dancing-party affords an outlet 
for the natural high spirits of youth which have 
been repressed through the long day." 

Folk-dancing is a prominent feature of the 
physical training in Y.W.C.A. work. Even 
churches are making use of it. The annual report 
for 1908 of All Souls Church in Chicago showed 
that the work of its gymnasium department in- 
cluded such dancing, and in the last few years 
many more have introduced it. 

For many years the therapeutic value of danc- 
ing for the insane has been recognized; and 
weekly dances, confined, of course, to the milder 
patients, are given in most asylums. The value, 
too, of rhythm in training the feeble-minded has 
long since been acknowledged. 

So far, stress has been laid upon the value of 
' dancing in the physical and mental training of 
': the young. Rightly controlled it has, besides, a 
127 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

place in the struggle against vice. The dangers of 
the dance-hall with its allurement to immorality 
are too well known to need description; but to 
the girl who leads a dreary, monotonous life, 
they are so great a temptation that it takes a 
strong charm to counteract their influence. A 
well-known social worker in New York, Mrs. 
Charles Israels, has recognized that, far from, 
attempting to do away with the dance, we must | 
furnish more attractive opportunities for it. i 
Accordingly she has been active in an effort to 
provide model public dance-halls in New York, 
where young people may have a good floor and 
good music and come under proper supervision 
and instruction. Ninety-five per cent of the 
working-girls of New York go to dance-halls, of 
which there are nearly seven hundred (counting 
*' dancing-academies") J with an average attend- 
ance of one hundred thousand a week. Ninety 
per cent of these girls are under twenty-one, and 
forty-five per cent under sixteen. Owing to the 
success, both in point of attendance and arrange- 
ment, of the dances in the park field-houses of 
Chicago, philanthropic societies, such as the 
Chicago Juvenile Protective Association, advo- 
cate city dance-halls on the same lines as that 
of the field-house, and as easy of access as the 
128 



I 



DANCING 



commercial dance -hall. Such halls might be- 
come self-supporting. The association has al- 
ready established one; playgrounds in Phila- 
delphia are to have them; and, in Milwaukee, 
municipal balls are now given under proper reg- 
ulation. Opinion in favor of the establishing of 
municipal dance-halls has been rapidly growing; 
in Cleveland there are already some which are 
self-supporting. 

If one asks, "What educational value is there 
in the stage-dancing in vogue?" we answer, "At 
its best, that of a picture, a concert, or any 
other art product, — a passive, not an active 
value. It indicates an advance in ideals, and 
promises a new source of culture and enjoy- 
ment." In this renascence of the art, some few 
performers are returning to the old tradition 
of ballet -dancing, as, for example. Miss Adeline 
Genee, who ranks as the true successor of Tag- 
lioni and Fanny Elssler; while Pavlova, Maud- 
! kin, and other Russians form a link between the 
' old style and the new, by bringing in not only 
I their own national spirit, but further inspiration 
from the Orient and from Greece. 

The new school aims to express in dancing the 
spirit of some work of art, a picture, a poem, a 
inusical symphony. Apparently, the interpre- 
129 



I 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

tation rests not so much on a solid basis of tech- 
nique as upon natural endowment and power to 
express sentiment and emotion, though subject 
to a hidden law far more difficult to master than 
that of the regular ballet. It holds the dancer 
to be the medium, through whom the feeling 
aroused by a story or symphony is conveyed. 
Foremost among these interpretative dancers is 
Isadora Duncan, who has been expounding and 
illustrating her art for many years. Dancing 
always with bare feet, in a costume of clinging 
drapery, her appearance at first aroused un- 
favorable comment. Her manner of presenting 
the dance was a noticeable departure from ordi- 
nary standards and freed from all convention. 
It recalled, according to one critic, 'Hhe rhyth- 
mic movements of nature, the spontaneous, 
joyous activity of children, or the natural, un- 
fettered dance-motives of untutored peoples.'* 
The artist's attitude toward her art is revealed 
in her great aversion to being photographed. 
'^One cannot," she says, "photograph an idea, 
still less a thought, a sentiment ; then why should 
one wish to photograph my dances, since they are 
the reflection of my sentiments and thoughts? " 
Such originality has lent itself to ridicule and 
caricature; yet for the most part she has been 
130 



DANCING 

taken seriously. Some years ago she founded a 
school at Griinewald, Berlin, where for a time she 
took young children and trained them for the 
stage, keeping them until they were grown. Be- 
sides the ordinary instruction of schools, they 
studied the best art of different periods and were 
brought under such influence as would develop 
i a feeling for form and rhythm. 

Because of Miss Duncan's position as pioneer 
'in this movement, it may be well to give its 
'underlying philosophy in her own words: — 

We had our dancing-lesson in the woods this morn- 

'ing. It was glorious weather; and when I see the 

' children dancing like this under the trees, I wish we 

•could always have our lessons here. I spoke long 

'and earnestly to the children, and they seemed to 

, understand what I sought to make clear to them; 

.namely, the difference between dancing in the open 

nair and dancing within four walls ; and that when they 

came to dance on the stage, they were always to try 

to imagine that they were in the open air; that 

there were no walls around them, and that they were 

stretching out their arms to the sky. And I showed 

them how deep and strong were the movements 

3 they saw around them; how much energy was at 

'work, even in the tiny body of the butterfly as it 

fluttered hither and thither. I pointed out how 

strong and rhythmical the wind was in the tree-tops; 

and the children spoke among themselves, and 

131 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

showed me the difference in the movements with 
their own bodies. We go to the woods every sunny 
morning and I beHeve we learn a great deal. 

Again, speaking of a child on the shore, Miss 
Duncan says : — 

Her dance by the sea seemed to me to contain, 
in little, the whole problem at which I am working. 
. . . She dances because she is full of the joy of life. 
She dances because the waves dance before her eyes; 
because the winds are dancing; because she can feel 
the rhythm of the dance throughout the whole of 
Nature. To her it is a joy to dance, to me it is a joy 
to watch her. It is summer now here by the sea, and 
life is filled with joy; but I think of winter in town, 
in the streets, in the houses; of life in the towns in 
the gloomy winter. How can the life of Nature, the 
joy of summer and sunshine, the joy of a child danc- 
ing by the sea — how can all this beauty be strewn 
in the towns? Can the dancer suggest all this and; 
remind men of it in the winter- time in the cities?) 
Can she call up in me the same delight which she 
is giving me now, as I sit here on the beach and 
watch her dancing? I look closely and study her 
movements. What is this dance she is dancing? I 
see that they are simple movements, and steps she 
has learned at the school during the past two years. 
But she invests them with her own spontaneous child- 
like feelings, her own childhke happiness. She is 
dancing what she has been taught; but the move- 
ments taught her are so completely in harmony 
132 



1 



DANCING 

with her childlike nature that they seem to spring 
direct from her inmost being. In the memoranda 
for my method of instruction, I have laid down that 
the child must not be taught to make movements, 
but her soul as it grows to maturity must be guided 
and instructed; in other words, her body must be 
taught to express itself by means of motions which 
are natural to it. I do not mean to say that the 
meaning of every motion must be explained to the 
child in words; but that the motion must be of such 
a nature that the child feels the reason for it in every 
fiber. In this way the child will become versed in 
the simple language of gesture. 

Artistic or dramatic dancing has entered upon 
a new era, or, more truly, it is reviving the old 
feeling for it of the Greeks to whom all nature 
spoke of invisible but active intelligences. But 
the number of creative dancers being small, their 
vogue and the attraction of their method will too 
probably result in the mere copying of move- 
ments by imitators, until at length their so-called 
** interpretative" and *' natural" types will pass 
inevitably into a definite, inelastic form. Yet 
the present phase is valuable, since it has brought 
in a vitality that was wanting. Furthermore, in 
its general effect upon the theater-going public, 
although it may justly be criticized in many 
of its developments, and its moral influence is 
133 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

sometimes bad, it is nevertheless undeniable 
that, because of it, the public now demands a 
more artistic and inspiring type than it did 
twenty years ago. The outlook, therefore, is 
hopeful; not, perhaps, for a return to the Greek 
ideal, which is alien to our feeling, but for a mod- 
ern embodiment of the Greek love of truth and 
beauty in exquisitely gentle movements con- 
forming to definite laws of proportion and har- 
mony, thus expressing the dramatic instinct on 
the higher plane of aesthetics. 



VIII 

STORY-TELLING 

We have seen that play and dancing are nature's 
own means of developing mankind. An awaken- 
ing of the aesthetic sense appears in dancing, and 
determines it to a later period than that of play. 
Both play and dancing call into exercise the 
intellect; but the intellect first becomes conscious 
of itself in story-telling. 

In the Far East, story-telling has still an im- 
portant place, and is a profession. In China, the 
story-teller is moralist and preacher; in Japan, 
he is more the artist; seated upon his mat with 
tea and smoking-apparatus at hand, surrounded 
by groups of eager listeners, he is still a familiar 
sight. One has but to read the fascinating tales 
of Japanese folklore to see how they have deter- 
mined the poetic and romantic quality of Japa- 
neseart; and it is fortunate that, with the introduc- 
tion of Western learning, the teaching of tales 
on which so many generations of Japanese chil- 
dren have been reared has not been discarded. 
In the woman's university at Tokyo, it enters 
into the curriculum. 

135 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

In Greece and Rome, heroic legends were a 
means of awakening national spirit in boys and 
youths, making them daring and courageous, 
and aiding generally in the moulding of character. 
In the North, saga-men, scops, and bards recited 
the deeds of gods and men, and stimulated 
the imagination of youthful hearers, while they 
soothed the old. In mediaeval times, minstrels 
and troubadours went from castle to castle re- 
peating their tales and legends in song; and even 
now, in a few places, as in Brittany, the story- 
teller goes from village to village, though the 
profession has become somewhat debased. In 
Ireland, the peasantry still tell the tales that have 
descended by word of mouth through genera- 
tions. Among primitive peoples, most of all, 
has story-telHng been a power. Tales of the mys- 
terious workings of nature, traditions of tribe 
and race, and of the personal prowess of fore- 
fathers, have stimulated thought and thereby 
raised the race in the scale of humanity. Fi- 
nally, story-telling, is fulfilling a mission for the 
children of foreigners in the United States, by 
preserving the traditions of their fatherlands. 

Moiiy of the stories told by savage peoples are 

of great dramatic and literary merit. Tales of 

ancient nations gathered by students of folklorl 

136 



STORY-TELLING 

not only form a valuable contribution to world 
literature, but give insight into the mental and 
emotional life of different races that could have 
been gained by no other means. As a literary 
art, story-telling has now reached a high state 
of perfection, and educators are turning it to 
account. First in the kindergarten, and now in 
some of the schools, it is a part of regular routine 
work; in others it is a form of recreation. Its 
use in coimection with dramatic work of the 
primary grades has been treated in a former 
chapter. 

Numerous attempts have been made of late 
years to tabulate children's interest in stories, 
and make out a school curriculum according to 
the different stages of mental development; but 
they are as yet too incomplete to furnish any 
scientific foundation for pedagogy. As far as they 
have gone, they appear to parallel the order of 
development for the race; which has had its 
periods of interest in myth and folk- tale, Thier- 
epos and fairy tale, each suited to a particular 
stage in its upward progress : jingles and counting 
out rhymes; Mother-Goose stories; stories of 
action, oftentimes a mere string of incidents, in 
child or animal life; stories that appeal to the 
"feral" age; then fairy tales; then the realistic 

137 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

tale and stories of adventure; and, last of all, 
myth and the romantic and religious story. But 
all these different phases of interest overlap one 
another, and many of them last through life. 
Especially is this true with stories that appeal 
because of their dramatic elements. 

Each of these different story groups has its 
peculiar educational value. Fairy tales may be 
used for arousing the emotional nature; fables, 
for giving practical truths in a concise and telling 
form; folk- and animal- tales, for bringing chil- 
dren into touch with nature and for presenting 
truth in the guise of images; myths, for their 
appeal to the race instinct (these, in the opinion 
of Dr. Hall, coming as near pure object- teaching 
as ethics can get; and, according to Miss Blow, 
foreshadowing conquest of the will) ; legend, for 
stimulating historical imagination and hero- 
worship; nonsense-tales, for cultivating a sense 
of humor; and finally, carefully selected love 
stories as a means of harmless discharge for the 
emotions, and for developing a lofty ideal of sex. 
This last is advocated by Miss Ellen Key, the 
Swedish educator and writer. 

There is just now a manifest tendency, often, 
carried to excess, to correlate story-telling with 
the studies of the curriculum. Nature stories, 

138 



STORY-TELLING 

including myths that embody scientific truth, 
are used in connection with nature study; and 
historical stories which appeal to hero-worship 
and patriotism are correlated with history and 
geography. Some are used in the study of Eng- 
lish for grammar lessons, sentence construction, 
etc.; others to create interest in reading, or to 
furnish models for written composition and oral 
expression. In the last, children of the self-con- 
scious age are lamentably deficient, and poverty 
of language is noticeable in the high school. Spell- 
ing-lists have been made up from stories; the 
illustration furnishes a lesson in drawing, when 
the children picture not only what they see but 
formulate their own ideas. Some of the uses 
seem very far-fetched and carried to a ridiculous 
extreme; the teaching of singing, clay-modeling, 
and even wood- and metal -work by means of 
stories, have all been advocated. 

Besides the advantages to be gained from 
special groups as already enumerated, there are 
general pedagogical advantages in story-telling. 
Among these the training and concentration of 
attention is often placed first. It is claimed, too, 
that for the child whose power of comprehension 
is beyond his power of reading, an obstacle in 
the way of his educational development is re- 

139 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

moved. The stress so constantly laid upon the 
appeal to the eye is offset by the appeal to the 
ear, and mental types are developed with more 
freedom. For reducing self-consciousness — the 
source of torment and hindrance to the progress 
of so many children — story-telhng is also val- 
uable. It relaxes the rigidity of schoolroom re- 
gime; it humanizes the relation of pupil and 
teacher, and has been found to give a better 
moral tone. It creates ideas of right living, and 
gives the child standards which not infrequently, 
years afterward, stand him in good stead. It 
stimulates the imagination; it leads to invention; 
it develops aesthetic appreciation, and stocks 
the mind with abundant working material. 
And still other important uses of it are to be 
noted in the realm of pedagogy. By simply giving 
pleasure, stories accomplish an important end. 
As in play, the pleasure reacts on the nervous 
system, and benefits the bodily functioning in 
many ways. Best of all, it educates the emotions. 
Mrs. Porter Lander McClintock, in her book 
Literature in the Elementary School, points out 
that stories should cultivate the emotional side of 
children's natures, *' effecting in them that puri- 
fying discharge which Aristotle regarded as one 
of the helpful ofi&ces of literature." She speaks 
140 



STORY-TELLING 

of the "desiccating effect" of the American 
school upon the emotional nature, and empha- 
sizes the need of calHng out and exercising the 
feelings. A story, she says, should be told to 
children, rather than read to them, and in so 
doing it is important to preserve dramatic values. 
Besides its use in the grammar school and high 
school, story- telling is growing in favor in other 
institutions. Stories have long been told in Sun- 
day schools, but costumes and action are now 
added to make the narrative more lifelike. This 
has lately been advocated by Dean Hodges of 
the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge. 
Churches utiHze it also, in their effort to deal 
with practical social problems in institutional 
work. For example, St. Bartholomew's, New 
York, has established a Wednesday afternoon 
story-hour, when boys illustrate the stories told 
them, acting them out on the spur of the moment, 
thus making living pictures; so that the day has 
in fact come to be called ''Living-Picture Day" 
and draws large audiences. 
P Where the teaching of religion in schools is not 
sanctioned, story-telling becomes an important 
factor for moral education, and the old Bible 
stories furnish the best of all material for the 
purpose. The story of Joseph is found to be 
141 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

almost unequaled for its interest, and those of 
David and Daniel, as well as many others, are 
widely popular. 

Story-telling has also come into the work of 
boys' clubs. Professor Burr, of the Y.M.C.A. 
training-school in Springfield, believing that im- 
pressions from stories should result in expression 
by action, has introduced a graded course into 
the federated boys' clubs conducted by students 
of the association, and suggests coupling the 
stories with certain activities and occupations; 
with nature stories, tramps in the woods and the 
care of plants; with tales of individual prowess, 
athletics and g)annastic work as well as construc- 
tive work of all sorts, — clay-modeling, knife- 
work, etc.; with stories of great leaders, games 
which involve team-play; with altruistic stories, 
some service in behalf of less fortunate boys. 

For many years in many libraries, a story- 
hour has been instituted in order to direct chil- 
dren to the best books. The Carnegie Library 
of Pittsburg began systematic story-telling to 
large groups in 1899, and has arranged courses 
of stories selected from romantic and imagina- 
tive literature to extend over eight years. 

While this has been in large measure success- 
ful, the objection has been brought against it 
142 



STORY-TELLING 

that, although library reports show that thou- 
sands of children have been interested, and the 
general circulation of children's books increased, 
the same effect can be produced by the librarians 
without the story-hour. It is claimed that story- 
telHng in libraries is out of place; teachers know 
better how and when to introduce it, and can 
reach hundreds of children instead of one class 
of forty or so, weekly. Many Hbraries provide 
a story-teller to visit schools, who, by her story- 
telHng, brings children flocking to the Hbrary. 
Instruction in story-telKng now finds place in 
the preparatory schools for both librarians and 
teachers. In the training-school for children's 
librarians, conducted by the Pittsburg Library, 
all students are obliged to take a course in story- 
telling, which includes practice as well as lec- 
tures. Pupils in normal schools also practice 
telling stories, illustrating them with colored 
chalk on the blackboard, so that an appeal is 
made to eye and ear at once. 

With the sudden increase of popular interest 
in story-telling, its possibilities as a profession 
have been greatly augmented, almost indeed 
created. Many trained story-tellers and public 
performers are in the field. They travel from 
place to place as entertainers, or sometimes in 

143 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

the interest of a publishing house that is intro- 
ducing manuals and primers for reading-systems 
in which story-telling figures prominently. Some- 
times, too, they are engaged for public lectures 
and demonstrations before a body of teachers 
who were educated before the days when story- 
telling had become a part of normal-school train- 
ing. 

For institutions of various sorts, not only edu- 
cational but philanthropic, the story-hour has 
many possibilities; but, as has often happened 
with other educational and sociological depar- 
tures, those in which the need is greatest are 
usually the last to be reached. Beginnings are 
being made, however, which promise hopefully; 
for example, in the " Girls' Home and Refuge" in 
Darlington, Pennsylvania, a Sunday night story- 
hour is held for those who prefer it to attending 
church. Miss Helen Glenn tells of how eagerly 
girls who have not had fairy tales in childhood 
seize upon them at seventeen or eighteen, one 
reason being "because they always end happily." 
The good effect of the story-hour upon these girls 
has been striking. 

Among other uses there is the systematic em- 
ployment of the story for sick and neurotic 
patients. That story-telling is coming to play 
144 



i 



STORY-TELLING 

its part as therapy is well illustrated at the Adams 
Nervine Asylum in Jamaica Plain. Miss Susan 
Tracey, superintendent of nurses there, realizing 
that nurses fail, not so much in the physical care 
of the sick as in the companionable qualities and 
in ability to interest convalescing patients (for, 
as she says, "a really good nurse takes care of 
her patient^s thoughts"), employs a teacher from 
the Boston School of Expression to give instruc- 
tion to the nurses of the institution. The teacher 
who conducts the course tries by various means 
to develop the personality of her pupils, broad- 
ening their sympathies and developing the imag- 
ination, — the two fundamental elements, she 
claims, in dramatic interest. 

In settlements, from their very inception, 
story-telling has been used as a means of recrea- 
tion and getting into sympathetic relations with 
children. The same may be said of vacation 
schools, where the story-hour is frequently the 
greatest of all attractions. In the evening recrea- 
tion centers and boys' clubs, too, the story-hour 
plays a prominent part, both in this country and 
in the Old World; as, for example, in the "Happy 
Evenings" in England, of which it is an especial 
feature. 

In the Playground movement, story - telling 

145 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

has quite a role; and the successful playground 
assistant must count this among her accompUsh- 
ments, though in many cities the professional 
story-teller is regularly employed. While the 
swings and other apparatus are in use and 
rougher sports going on, there is almost always 
to be seen, in some secluded part of the grounds, 
a little group gathered around a story-teller in. 
rapt attention. 

The "Story-Tellers' League" which started 
in 1903 at the summer school in Knoxville, 
Tennessee, is perhaps indicative of the interest 
that has developed on every side. Informal meet- 
ings held at twilight on the university campus 
grew into an organization which afterwards be 
came a national league. It not only furnished 
a model for similar meetings held at other sum- 
mer schools, but for fifty or more other leagues 
in various States, with a membership now of over 
four thousand, besides junior leagues among 
children. The purpose of the leagues, according 
to the president of the national association, Mr. 
Wyche, is to "rediscover Hfe's best stories and^ 
retell them with love and sympathy." The pub-; 
Ucation known as The Story-Hour serves as an 
organ of the association. ! 

Yet with all this increase of story-telling and 
146 



STORY-TELLING 

diversity in its application among educators, 
moralists, social workers, and religionists, dis- 
senting voices are now and again heard, here and 
there a note of protest is sounded. It is queried 
whether stories on all occasions and for all 
purposes, upon every conceivable subject, in 
school and out, are really productive of the best 
educational results. Will not the surfeit of stories 
produce confusion in the child's mind? Will 
not attainment with so little effort weaken the 
power of application, and destroy the habit of 
work? It is said that children frequently remem- 
ber a story, and forget the point it was meant 
to teach. A writer in a recent number of Child 
Life gives a case where three stories, told for 
three separate purposes, had fallen into the one 
category of heroes of romance. The complaint 
also has been made that children coming from 
the kindergarten lack interest in study, and too 
frequently insist that lessons be put in story 
form. Many teachers think that stories as a 
medium for information, and those that are used 
for introducing any kind of handiwork, are out 
of place. They condemn particular kinds of 
I stories for special reasons; ghost - stories, for 
example, on the ground that they tend to make 
children more timid than they are by nature; 
147 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

and many of the old-time favorites for their lack 
of moral teaching or their harmful emotional 
reactions; ^'Little Red Riding-Hood," for ex- 
ample, or "Rip Van Winkle." 

All these, however, are criticisms not of story- i 
telling itself, but of its handling. Doubtless I 
there is much unwise use of it at present. No one 
would advocate overfeeding, even on good food. 
But as for the stories chosen, those that have 
been favorites for centuries, appearing again and 
again in the same or similar form and among 
many peoples, would seem to be safe enough. If 
all the world favorites that present savage ele- 
ments or enlist our sympathies for weak or de- 
linquent characters are to be rejected, the treas- 
ures of Hterature would be sadly depleted. 

A much stronger objection to story- telling is 
that it seems to palliate lying; but this is to lose 
sight of the ever-present dramatic instinct in 
human nature. Children love to invent little 
stories and tell them; less often they write them. 
The child who Hves in a world of fancy delights 
to picture to other children this little world of 
his very own, in which older people have no 
share. The maturing boy delights his friends with 
tales of improbable happenings, satisfying in 
this way his hunger for invention and expression, 
148 



STORY-TELLING 

and his desire for appreciation; craving the stim- 
ulation which the creative artist gets, when he 
caters to his audience. A vivid imagination, 
the desire to move and startle others, the pas- 
sion for acting-out result in what the unimagi- 
native call lies; but the things told are very real 
to the teller. It is possible that a too vivid 
imagination in children should be curbed; yet 
there is danger that, in an age of exact science 
and materialism, imagination will be dulled. 

It is normal for adolescent girls to indulge in 
day-dreams. They crave something removed 
from everyday existence, and this leads them to 
weave romances about themselves, their friends 
and surroundings; they tell of the most extraor- 
dinary and unbelievable experiences. But only 
those whose nervous system is unsound are likely 
to become morbid. They pass through this phase 
and forget it. 

As to whether story-tellers are born or made, 
there can be little diversity of opinion; without 
doubt, story-telling is a special gift. Still it is 
possible to cultivate, enlarge, and enrich it. 
Most of the suggestions for so doing, found in 
compilations and various story-telling manuals, 
are indefinite and impracticable, and only val- 
uable as showing beginners their handicaps and 
149 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

limitations. "Vivid mental imagery," for ex- 
ample, and "will-power sufficient to overcome 
self-consciousness and give hearers a feeling of 
power in reserve," are not to be acquired at will. 
Even a "full, clear, flexible, well -modulated 
voice, expressive features and graceful move- 
ments," are natural assets; while "tact, intui- 
tion, magnetism," and all that is implied by 1 
"charm" and "personality," are either beyond I 
the reach of individual attainment, or, if latent, f 
are brought out oftener by indirect influences 
than by conscious effort or by mechanical train- 
ing directed to that end. But some points may J 
well be emphasized; as the necessity of telling a f 
story simply and dramatically, and of adapting ; 
it to the age and mental development of the 
hearers. For this, there is no better natural 
quahfication than strong common-sense, and no 
better preparation than a good course in child- 
study and such training as is given in any good 
school of oratory and dramatics. 

With such training one will not choose Jap- 
anese fairy tales, for example, for American 
children ; there is too little in Eastern Ufe and 
customs to attract them. Yet sometimes, by 
drawing comparisons from immediate surround- 
ings and introducing details to vivify and make 

150 



STORY-TELLING 

concrete, one may often arouse an interest in 
things that at first appear remote and unrelated. 
In other words, whatever is said must be trans- 
lated into the experience of the child in order to 
have meaning; 'and the story-teller must not 
reckon with the impression in his own mind, but 
in that of the child. 

A small repertoire of stories thoroughly learned, 
not by mere memorizing (except in the case of 
certain folk-tales and old-time favorites that 
lose if not given in the words of the original), 
but known to the narrator as a series of incidents 
clearly held in mind, will be found better than 
a larger number, the form of which is varied at 
each telling. For the inexperienced teller, the 
choice of material that has already been put in 
story-form is for obvious reasons advisable. 

For the other side of story-telling, where the 
children are the tellers, few directions are needed, 
and these chiefly negative. Teachers who make 
the best use of story-telling by children agree 
that they must not be stopped in their narration 
for correction in grammar, pronunciation, or 
any mistake in the statement. Such correction 
stops the flow of ideas, and makes it impossible 
to keep the denouement clearly in view. They 
recognize, also, that to retell is not simply to give 
151 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

a story in the language of the original (for this 
is merely exercise of memory), but to re-create i 
it, as the child himself sees it. He will, therefore, *| 
surely leave out some points and add others in 
order to emphasize the features that have most 
appealed to him. But this matter of reproduc- 
tion trenches upon dramatic action, and the 
laws of one are applicable to the other. 

With whatever curtailment and limitation 
that may be found necessary, story-telling in the 
schoolroom has come to stay. By relieving the 
monotony of routine, by making school life a 
pleasure, it is, whatever may be its cost in time, 
trouble and money, abundantly worth while. 



IX 



MOVING PICTURES 



It is a long step from the Muybridge photo- 
graphs of 1878 and Edison's first little nickel- 
in-the-slot machine for showing photographs in 
rapid succession to the cinematograph of 1914. 
It is scarcely two decades since the sight of an 
express train in full motion was first introduced 
as the finale of a vaudeville show. The history 
of the rise of the moving picture in these few 
years attests the universal longing for the dra- 
matic. 

So phenomenal has been the development, so 
miraculous its prosperity, its financial strength 
and resources, and its growth generally into a 
public institution, that it is almost impossible to 
keep pace with it statistically or post one's self 
as to its increasing range of subject. 

New York has over eight hundred, Chicago 
over six hundred moving-picture houses, and 
other cities proportionally large numbers. Ac- 
cording to the latest available reports, there are 
to-day about seventeen thousand moving-pic- 
153 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

ture houses in this country, with a daily attend- 
ance of seven million people, over a half -million 
of whom are children. In view of such facts, it 
is not surprising to find that millions of dollars 
are represented in the moving picture as an in- 
dustry. Its interests are consolidated in a trust 
with a capitalization which exceeds that of the 
Standard Oil Company, while there are "inde- 
pendents" which, taken together, are scarcely 
less powerful. In foreign countries, well-known 
authors and artists are writing and acting for 
the moving-picture drama. The names of Jules 
Lemaitre, of the Academic Fran^aise; Mounet- 
Sully, of the Theatre Fran^ais; Hervieu and Ed- 
mond Rostand, in France, and George Sims, in 
England, show what talent is enlisted. Even 
Bernhardt and Re jane have acted before the 
moving-picture camera. 

Many of the pictures are regular scenes acted 
in the open, made oftentimes at fabulous cost 
and even with danger and fataHty to the posers. 
Others are "fake" pictures, put together in 
startling and incongruous ways, so that by their 
rapid succession absurd and impossible happen- 
ings are pictured as though they had actually 
been photographed. Most of the travel scenes 
are genuine — real scenes like those of Lieuten- 

154 



MOVING PICTURES 

ant Shackleton in the Antarctic, or of General 
Villa at Torreon; scenes of accidents and fires, 
on the other hand, are merely staged. For the 
latter numerous rehearsals are required; and 
many firms have their own studios for the pur- 
pose, some on an extensive scale. One such 
firm in Chicago occupies an entire block and 
has a menagerie attached; while Selig's estab- 
lishment in Paris requires no less than three 
blocks for its plant. They have also good-sized 
stages provided underneath with tanks of water 
for aquatic scenes, and laboratories are attached 
with large forces of women -workers. Besides 
occasional star actors, a large corps of permanent 
ones, including many whose names upon the 
regular stage are more or less well known, are 
constantly employed. 

No pains or expense is spared in obtaining 
suitable and novel settings. The hiring of a small 
railroad and equipment for a day is but an item. 
Not only are excursions made into the country 
when mountain or meadow scenery is required, 
but long journeys through Europe and even 
around the world. According to a recent account 
in an English periodical, an expedition for hunt- 
ing a man-eating lion was organized, that a well- 
known animal photographer might get snap- 

155 



< 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

shots for a cinematograph. The enterprise in- 
volved both skill and danger. The mounted i 
hunters, the natives' attack with spears as thai 
animal charged from the bush, and finally the 
death were all pictured ; sometimes, without such | 
expeditions, hunting - scenes are produced. Ai 
Chicago manufacturer of films is said to have 
arranged a spurious hunt in which, however, a 
real lion was slaughtered. Several films have 
cost $100,000 or over to produce; and Homer's 
Odyssey has been completed by an Italian firm, 
after two years of preparation, at an expenditure 
of no less than $200,000. 

On the technical and artistic sides, moving pic- 
tures are constantly being perfected. Notable 
progress has been made in lessening "flicker," 
"raining," and the noise of the necessary machin- 
ery; and while pictures have till lately been 
monochromatic or dichromatic, it is now possible 
to project them upon the screen in natural colors. 

As regards the moral quality of the scenes 
given, there has been a constantly increasing 
gain; and while it is undeniably true that ques- 
tionable plays are sometimes reproduced, for 
some years the pictures have also been of high 
educational value. Trips to the Zoo are repre- 
sented, and, in England, the stages of organic 

156 



MOVING PICTURES 

life, from micro-organism to animal, while in 
Sweden a moving - picture theater to present 
historical scenes has been endowed. Besides 
pictures of methods of transportation, indus- 
tries, growth of plants, behavior of animals, 
history, etc., managers are producing those of 
literary character. Famous poems of Browning, 
Tennyson, and Longfellow have been illustrated 
and dramatized. Novels of Tolstoy, George 
Eliot, de Maupassant, and Victor Hugo, classic 
fairy tales and Bible stories have all been thrown 
upon the screen, and given in condensed but 
attractive form. Plays of Shakespeare (for ex- 
ample, Romeo and Juliet) and other classics, as 
well as time-worn melodramas, have been re- 
modeled and condensed, that the story might be 
made to cover a few minutes instead of several 
hours. Recently, instead of abbreviated ver- 
sions of well-known dramas, full plays have been 
prepared; and Mme. Sans-Gene, acted by Re jane 
and the Parisian company, and Bernhardt's 
Camille now constitute one reelj and are given 
as a single entertainment. 

Some of the theaters which exemplify the 
better use of moving pictures show scenes of 
general social and industrial interest; as, for 
example, different occupations in the trade 

157 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

school for girls, scenes illustrating the work of 
the District Nursing Association, of social settle- 
ments, of the Child-Labor movement, of work in 
school gardens, and even daily news and current 
events. Building and mechanical operations 
are pictured by means of slow time-exposure; 
and the construction of a skyscraper and other 
processes, whose actual carrying-out is a matter 
of several months, are reproduced in the course 
of a few minutes. 

To show how they have become a great factor 
for good as recreation for more or less isolated 
peoples, they are furnished now to the Esqui- 
maux; and lepers, exiled on the island of Molo- 
kai, enjoy them. In Russia they enliven the dull 
life of the peasants, and in Africa instruct the 
native negro. Some of the more elaborate of the 
ocean steamers are equipped with kinetoscopes, 
and travelers may study en route the lands they 
are to visit. 

Of late the motion picture has made its way 
into legitimate drama, where it is used at times 
in place of scenery; and also, as in Wagner's 
Gdtterddmmerung, to replace dangerous feats of 
performers. 

On educational and scientific sides, its appli- 
cations are numerous, and some of the higher 

158 



MOVING PICTURES 

institutions for learning now have their own films 
and apparatus. Even in the lower schools there 
are circuits sometimes of twenty or more that 
have the use of machine, films, and operator 
twice a month. For lectures and travelogues it 
is very much in vogue. A few years ago the well- 
known teacher, Dr. Otto Driessen, of Berlin, 
made use of the cinematograph in an effective 
manner for a lecture delivered at a congress 
at Brussels. Recognizing that there was much 
on the program about school work in Germany 
that was dead matter, he hit upon a plan for 
showing the foreign delegates what education 
in Charlottenburg was like in all its stages. He 
combined the graphophone and the cinemato- 
graph, so that his audience saw and heard at 
the same time. Later in Berlin under the aus- 
pices of a scientific society, before an audience 
of scientists, he demonstrated how thirteen 
branches of science might be effectively taught 
. by aid of the cinematograph. He showed, among 
3 other things, how embryology might be dem- 
'i onstrated, picturing the progressive development 
1' from the germ in the egg to the fully developed 
chick. He gave the processes in the cotton 
• industry of the United States, from the planting 
1 of the seed to the manufactured product; the 
159 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

details of the "sleeping sickness," the opening 
of the "Victoria Regia," the ebb and flow of 
the tide, the construction of earthworks, typical 
symptoms that attack earth-workers (now be- 
come a practical problem for insurance com- 
panies), the explosion of submarine mines, and 
the different positions of Napoleon at the battle 
of Austerlitz. He so convincingly demonstrated 
the usefulness of the cinematograph as an edu- 
cational tool that comic papers in reporting the 
lecture said that "it would be a good thing if 
school were done away with, and the theater put 
in its place." f 

Moving pictures are used in demonstrating 
to hospital students the operating methods of 
surgeon specialists, and in picturing speed trials, 
gunnery practice and maneuvers in the Brook- 
lyn Navy Yard. The value of having pictorial 
records of great men at their tasks can hardly 
br overestimated. Important engineering feats 
and structural work, in each step of their ac- 
complishment, the art of famous actors whose 
genius would survive otherwise only in tradition, 
may now be preserved in all their vividness. 

A French photographer has lately completed 
an apparatus for taking pictures of life on the 
ocean-bed; and, combined with the X-ray and 
1 60 

i 



MOVING PICTURES 

the micro-photograph, the moving-picture cam- 
era has been used to show the functioning of the 
heart and other organs and various processes 
of the human body and its action in diseases of 
the nervous system. According to report, phono- 
graph and cinematograph records of the social 
life of France are to be perpetuated in a Musemn 
of Speech and Gesture in Paris, by illustrations 
taken not only from the various provinces but 
from all grades of society. In this way the dif- 
ferences in accent, dress, manners, ceremonies, 
etc., will be preserved, as will also the manner 
of presenting classic dramas and musical works 
by contemporaneous companies, that future his- 
torians may have accurate data of the period and 
of the transformation of the race. 

Recently the standardizing of modern dances 
has been facilitated by film representations show- 
\ ing correct positions and steps. 

The moving picture has been enlisted in the 

cause of hygiene and sanitation: under the aus- 

S| pices of the American Civic Association, a rep- 

,{ resentation of the "filthy fly" and its part in 

spreading disease has been given, and a scientific 

lesson thus impressed upon many persons who 

I* would not have been affected by mere written 

) accounts. Improved methods of farming have 

i6i 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

been pictured. According to the Journal of the I 
American Medical Association (August 13, 1910), 
a playlet setting forth the harm done by impure 
milk is to be cinematographed, and the unhy- 
gienic methods on the old-fashioned farm forci- 
bly shown. In 1913 motion pictures on tuber- 
culosis were given in parks. 

For some years social settlements have made 
use of moving pictures both for purposes of en- 
tertainment and for education; and in social 
centers they are now making their appearance. 
Playgrounds are adding them to their hst of 
attractions. In the Hiram House Playground in 
Cleveland, already picture shows are given on 
two evenings of the week. Some years ago con- 
siderable interest and newspaper discussion were 
aroused by a proposal to operate moving pic- 
tures on Sunday evenings in a Congregational 
church in New Britain, Connecticut, a city with 
fifteen thousand wage-earners, many of them 
of foreign birth. A series of slides was prepared 
for the purpose; but after due consideration by 
the Standing Committee, it was decided not to 
carry out the plan. Churches elsewhere, however, 
are beginning to utilize the cinematograph; 
about one in twenty in New York now has one; 
and religious and quasi-religious societies are 
162 



MOVING PICTURES 

finding it a serviceable adjunct of religious 
teaching. In rough mining-camps and the like, 
the moving picture may be a very forcible means 
of moral and religious appeal, reaching a class 
of men whom it is difficult to approach or interest 
by ordinary methods. As a part, also, of mis- 
sionary propaganda, moving pictures have been 
used to show conditions in distant lands among 
poor and superstitious peoples before and after 
the advent of missionaries; and a stronger appeal 
is thus made to sympathy than would be pos- 
sible by any printed or even oral description. 

In fact, the exploiting of the cinematograph 
has only just begun, although managers who 
started with one little show have already become 
multi-millionaires at the head of a whole chain, 
and regular theaters and even opera houses have 
been compelled either to close their doors or 
turn themselves into picture shows. Those in- 
terested may well say that all is before them; 
and it is a fact worthy of notice that, since the 
upHf t of the moving-picture show from the vapid, 
if not criminal, scenes it first presented, to the 
educational plane, its patronage has steadily 
increased. 

If we consider the factors which make for the 
popularity of this form of entertainment, which 
163 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

is supplanting vaudeville and melodrama and 
has now become a most serious competitor of the 
legitimate drama, we note, in the first place, 
that the price is not prohibitive for the poorest 
day laborers. Whole families for a moderate 
sum can go often; and as a *' family" recreation 
place, the theater takes on respectability. The 
character of the show itself, too, is attractive 
in that it is so reahstic. Everything is presented 
as concretely as possible and reduced to merest 
essentials in accordance with the spirit of the 
times which makes for concentration. The prin- 
ciple of motion, also, gives an immense advan- 
tage over the ordinary stereopticon pictures, 
regardless of the degree of perfection the latter 
has attained, — a psychological principle of 
which advertisers have not been slow to take 
advantage; since, as everybody knows, moving 
signs, figures, or apparatus, wherever exhibited, 
invariably attract a crowd. The very rapidity 
of movement in the moving picture, so much 
more rapid than in real life, creates a feeling of 
excitement and expectancy. Not infrequently 
one thrilling episode follows another without 
pause, forcing spectators to breathless attention 
from the beginning of a number to the end. 
Then there is a certain amount of mental activity 
164 



MOVING PICTURES 

involved, and, in the absence of words, the need 
of filling gaps and recognizing the thought ex- 
pressed by gesture. The personal interpreta- 
tion gives intellectual zest; and there is mental 
stimulation without the fatigue of thinking in- 
volved in the modern problem-play. The feel- 
ing of companionship, even the luxury of the 
upholstered chairs, are things that count. Be- 
sides all this, it keeps pace with the times, and 
satisfies curiosity by picturing the doings of 
great people, bringing the humble into touch 
with the happenings in the world about them in 
which otherwise they have no part. Finally, for 
people who cannot afford the regular theater, 
it brings an element of romance into colorless 
lives, and furnishes excitement which young 
people crave, feeding the imagination, and re- 
leasing from the monotony of everyday affairs. 
People cannot work well, year in and year out, 
if they have no relaxation or joy of living. In 
short, the moving picture, by its appeal to cer- 
tain old and fundamental psychological princi- 
ples, adapts itself, as Mr. John Collier has said, 
"to the passions and preferences of the great 
amusement-seeking pubHc." 

But with all its attainments and its possibili- 
ties, many severe criticisms have been made, 

165 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

and serious charges brought against the present 
condition of the moving-picture show. These 
objections fall into three classes: first, those that 
are common to all public theater performances; 
second, those supposed to be innate in the char- 
acter of the show itself ; and third, those that are 
capable of being removed. The first may be 
passed over as belonging to the general discus- 
sion of drama. Under the second come the fac- 
tors which are physically injurious, — the eye- 
strain due to the constant flicker (greater when 
worn films are used), the darkness, and the dan- 
ger from fire, owing to the inflammable character 
of the film. The last has been much lessened 
by the use of a slow-burning film, and the in- 
vention of a noncombustible film is daily ex- 
pected. The danger of the darkness has been 
met, in some degree, by a law which enforces 
the turning-on of Hghts at frequent intervals; 
and it has been recently shown that the darkness 
itself is not needful, and pictures may be satis- 
factorily seen in dim light, or even in a flood of 
light with proper apphances for keeping it from 
falling directly upon the curtain. Under the 
third class of objections are the unsafe and ill- 
adapted buildings. Many used by the traveling 
show are fire-traps, and most of them have poor 
i66 



MOVING PICTURES 

ventilation. Most serious of all is the moral dan- 
ger involved in the darkened auditorium and 
adjoining rooms, which are often saloons, and 
in the fact that so many children and early- 
adolescents go to these shows unaccompanied 
by adults. Insulting advances have been made 
to women and young girls, and so serious is this 
evil that protective societies, like the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, have 
been obliged to interfere and even prosecute 
offenders. Structural changes are rapidly being 
made. Show places are not so dangerous in New 
York, but conditions vary in different States. 
The increasing number of reports that children 
were incited by moving pictures to commit 
crimes has aroused social workers, city officials, 
and educators to investigate them. 

The Juvenile Protective Association of Chi- 
cago, an organization backed by great wealth and 
influence, made two investigations of local five- 
and ten-cent theaters covering the period from 
1909 to 191 1. As a result of the first, numerous 
violations of the law and a demoralized condi- 
tion of affairs was reported. Theaters were found 
to be in bad locations near saloons, theater room- 
ing-houses, or five-cent theater hotels. Girls were 
enticed inside by the promise of tickets in return 
167 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

for work, or on some other pretext. Children, 
attracted by lurid advertisements and sensa- 
tional posters, crowded the entrances and were 
sometimes spoken to by boys or men and invited 
to the show; or they begged and pilfered to ob- 
tain admission. Offers were made of reduced- 
rate tickets — three for ten cents or two for 
five — to tempt the crowd. The conduct and 
speech of ''barkers" were in some cases found to 
be objectionable, as was also the behavior of 
ushers in one or two instances. The condition 
of the buildings was bad, and the pictures thrown 
upon the screen were in many cases demoraliz- 
ing; not only crime of all sorts was depicted, but 
scenes of brutality and revenge, though, on the 
other hand, many were highly educational. Of 
the latter, some dealt with historical subjects, 
scenery in foreign countries, dramatized works, 
matters injurious to health, industries, and occu- 
pations. A large number of melodramas of lurid 
type were given, but also, many scenes filled 
with homely sentiment. As is true generally, the 
most popular were the humorous pictures, some 
of them silly, yet, on the whole, harmless; such 
as "How Rastus got the Turkey"; the ''Ani- 
mated Arm Chair"; "Bridget and the Eggs." 
After the first investigation there was a notice- 
i68 



MOVING PICTURES 

able improvement. As a result, a censorship was 
instituted, objectionable films were removed, 
some of the places closed, and proposals for an 
improved law recommended. Attention was 
called to cases of revoked licenses wherein busi- 
ness was still carried on by the owner or a mem- 
ber of his family, though ostensibly transferred 
to other hands, and it was urged that the license 
should be for the place, rather than for the pro- 
prietor. The need of censorship for posters and 
advertisements was also pointed out. 

Previous to these investigations, this same 
association, the Juvenile Protective Society, had 
introduced an ordinance looking to the better 
ventilation of theaters in Chicago by having 
buildings so constructed that the air could be 
changed a number of times in proportion to the 
seating capacity in each. 

Within the past few years, by the establish- 
ment of a national board of censorship, a reform 
has been effected favorable to both managers 
and public. For years nickelodeons had been 
more or less unregulated by law; and the in- 
crease of abuses in New York, culminating in the 
exposure of graft in connection with the License 
Bureau, created great municipal opposition to 
the moving-picture theaters. When the situa- 
169 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

tion reached a crisis, all the licenses were revoked, 
and the best-regulated of these houses suffered 
with the rest. Exhibitors themselves naturally 
desired a surer basis for their business. They 
appealed accordingly to the People's Institute, 
for a solution of their difficulty. By cooperation' 
with various other civic institutions, they ob- 
tained a board of censorship. While this is with- 
out legal status, it has acknowledged influence 
and censors ninety-eight per cent of all the mov- 
ing-picture films of the country. It not only 
censors the films of the whole entertainment, 
including songs, vaudeville interludes, etc., but 
sees to the improvement of the structural and 
sanitary conditions of the theater buildings. 
It aims, too, to cooperate with similar organi- 
zations in other cities, supplying them with in- 
formation. All the principal film manufacturers 
of the United States have entered into agreement 
with this board of censorship, so that its work 
is now national. It is true, there are films called 
** special releases" that do not come under its 
authority. These are placed upon the market 
by syndicates or private individuals, and include, 
besides those of well-known lecturers, some that 
are secretly produced and circulated in violation 
of the criminal statutes of the different States. 
170 



MOVING PICTURES 

While the board excludes every picture of 
distinctly immoral tendency, it is deemed best 
not to be too rigid, but to proceed slowly, secur- 
ing the cooperation of manufacturers rather than 
antagonizing them. Moreover, motion pictures 
are a form of dramatic art, and, as such, deal with 
real life and its problems of crime. Any rule which 
excluded all crime would exclude the Shake- 
spearean drama. But they do condemn sensa- 
tionalism and representation of crime which 
does not involve a moral purpose, and their 
decisions are based on the probable general effect 
upon the audience. The introduction of white- 
slave pictures has brought difficult problems. 
The board has decided to allow only those sub- 
jects dealing with the social evil, which ^'arouse 
fear in the minds of both sexes, which stimulate 
efforts to rescue the prostitute, and which indi- 
cate sensible and workable methods of repres- 
sion." Scenes of prize-fighting, burglary, and 
kidnaping, have sometimes been allowed to re- 
main, while murders, suicides, robberies, and bull- 
fights were prohibited. In many cases, films are 
saved by eliminating a portion, sometimes a few 
yards only, of objectionable matter. In connec- 
tion with "store shows," which are run by men 
lacking in theater training, or interest in uplift- 
171 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

ing and perfecting moving-picture drama, the 
control of the board is likely to be of especial 
benefit. Not only stores but many saloons, es- 
pecially in the South, have been temporarily 
turned into theaters during a period of no- 
license, while their proprietors are only waiting 
for the opportimity to return to their old busi- 
ness. The board does not favor state censorship 
and only a modified local censorship ; because the 
effect of prohibiting the use of a film in one 
city, or of changing a single one of its many copies, 
is slight, compared with that of changing the 
original film at the output. 

The testimony of the Drama Committee of the 
Twentieth Century Club in Boston agrees with 
that of the investigators in Chicago and in other 
cities. It indicates that, in point of safety so far 
as building conditions are concerned, and in 
morality as regards material presented, the mov- 
ing-picture theater is in general far ahead of the 
so-called legitimate theater to-day. Yet it seems 
to be bearing the brunt of all the adverse criti- 
cism. It must not be overlooked that whenever 
moral lessons are weakly drawn or vice is made 
attractive, the opportunity for harm is greater, 
since its prices make it accessible to so great 
a number from the more impressionable and 
172 






MOVING PICTURES 

uneducated classes. It is also undeniably true 
that special shows of undesirable character are 
sometimes given at very late hours at night; and 
that notices of crimes committed by boys who 
are habitual attendants of moving-picture shows 
are more or less frequent. Boys have admitted 
in court that the crimes were suggested by bio- 
graph pictures which they had put in practice; 
also they have organized street bands of robbers, 
as they said, "just for the fim of the thing." 
The attempt of five boys in Greenwich, Connec- 
ticut, on February 28, 1910, to wreck a passen- 
ger train on the New York, New Haven and 
Hartford road was attributed to the same cause. 
The report of one of the investigations already 
mentioned condemned a picture play, in which 
a brutal father who strikes his wife is shot by his 
son, who is wildly applauded by the audience; for 
a boy who had seen the play fatally wounded 
his father who, in a moment of irritation, had 
raised his hand against the mother. According 
to the account, the boy was astonished that he 
was not to be regarded as a hero. Not infre- 
quently, also, very young children are upset 
nervously by the character of the material pre- 
sented. One small boy known to the writer was 
found hiding away his toys at night from fear 

173 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

of burglars whom he had seen some time before 
at one of the five-cent shows. But against the 
attendance of very young children the same argu- 
ments apply as for the regular theater, and with 
older ones there is too great readiness to lay 
much to the moving-picture theater that for- 
merly was credited to the influence of the cheap 
novel. It is well to remember that life in an en- 
vironment of unrelieved dullness is not without 
outbreaks of adolescents, and that moral delin- 
quency existed long before the days of moving 
pictures. The moving picture has uplifted pop- 
ular entertainment and will do so increasingly. 
It has crowded out the pernicious penny arcade. 
It has taken patronage from objectionable forms 
of vaudeville and burlesque, and it has become 
a powerful rival of the low dance-hall and the 
saloon. 

What will be the psychological effect upon 
mental imagery of so much visual presentation, 
of intense and long - continued concentration 
upon attention, of the prolonged tension and 
excitement upon quiet and sustained thinking, 
of so much concrete material upon the develop- 
ment of abstract thinking, remains to be seen. 
But nature demands for perfect development 
periods of rest as well as work and sleep. The 

174 



MOVING PICTURES 

well-to-do have their restful pleasures, long days 
in woods and fields, or a peaceful hearth-fire to 
dream beside. The poorest wage-earner may find 
this passive satisfaction of the ever - present 
dramatic instinct in the scenic interest of the 
moving-picture theater, of which, surrounded 
by warmth and comfort and with his family, he 
may take as much or as little as he will. The 
cheap moving-picture show, properly regulated, 
should be a power in solving the problem of up- 
lifting the masses; all the greater because they 
pay for it and feel the pride of patronage. 



X 

MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

The moving picture has been developed largely 
in the interest of adult audiences; the puppet 
or marionette play, so little known, alas, in 
America, is especially suited to children. It has 
had here no native development. It once existed! 
as an exotic in the foreign sections of our great 
cities; but the ordinary Kttle traveling Punch 
and Judy show, so familiar across the ocean, is 
here scarcely known. 

In Munich there is a municipal theater, prob- 
ably the only one in the world built for children 
and dedicated solely to their use, the actors on 
whose stage are wooden dolls. Here we have the 
last modern refinement of a dramatic develop- 
ment that has played a great part in all nations, 
ancient and modem. 

Its beginnings are lost in the mists of antiq- 
uity. According to some writers it had its birth 
in old Indian fairy tales; but the accepted view 
is that of Charles Magnin, whose Histoire des I 
Marionettes, written more than fifty years ago, jj. 
176 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

is followed by all succeeding writers. He thought 
they were derived from the animated statues of 
the ancients. Such statues were common in 
Egypt where, in the celebration of the Osiris 
festival, women bore them through the streets. 
The prophetic statue of Jupiter Ammon was car- 
ried, according to Diodorus Siculus, in a golden 
car on the shoulders of twenty-four priests, to 
whom it indicated the route by a movement of the 
head. The famous wooden statue of Venus at- 
tributed to Daedalus was moved- by weights 
within loaded with mercury. Puppet plays were 
known at a very early date in Greece. Xenophon 
and Aristotle speak of them, and records show 
that, besides those in the homes of wealthy 
Athenians, public performances were given. 
They were also known in Rome, though we have 
no description of their theater. Roman writers 
referred to them in similes like that of Horace, 
"Drawn by wire, like wooden figures another 
( man works." 

In the Orient, puppet play and an allied form 

called shadow play are so curiously intermingled 

in descriptions that they cannot always be clearly 

separated. It would appear, however, that 

■ishadow play originated in Java, and was derived 

■from a very old Malayan cult. There is an inter- 

177 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

esting theory, that shadow play is reminiscent 
of the time when all that the people saw of the 
religious ceremony was the shadow of the officiat- 
ing priest upon the walls of the sacred tent which 
hid him from their view. Its content embraces 
the oldest myths and legends, episodes from the 
Indian epics, — the Mahabharata and the Rama- 
yana, and such history as turns on the deeds of 
national heroes. From Java it spread north- 
ward. It is probably from China that it first be- 
came known to the Western world; for it is now 
everywhere spoken of as the Chinese shadow play. 
It seems to have been preferred in the East to 
the puppet play (if one can distinguish which is 
which), whereas the puppet play was more in 
favor in Europe. In fact, shadow plays were not 
known there till the seventeenth century. Their 
vogue seems to have been of short duration and 
limited to a few countries. 

The modus operandi of the shadow play is as 
follows: Colored figures made of thin translucent 
leather are displayed behind a tightly stretched, 
illuminated white Knen screen, and controlled 
by a manager who sings the text, moving the 
figures the while by attached wooden rods, and 
pressing them close against the screen so that 
they appear to be on the side nearest the specta- 

178 



,i 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

tors. Puppets, on the other hand, are jointed 
wooden dolls, worked by hand or by wires, ap- 
pearing on a miniature open stage. Sometimes 
they are elaborately carved, painted, and dressed 
to the life. They are made to imitate the move- 
ments of living actors, while the text of their 
play, recited from behind the scenes, seems to 
come from the figures themselves. Their French 
name, marionnettes (of uncertain derivation), is 
in constant use, and the words puppet play and 
marionette play are interchangeable. 

It is said that in China the puppet play was 
known two hundred years before our era, while 
shadow plays are recorded in the eleventh cen- 
tury A.D. An amusing incident is given in an 
account of the siege of a Chinese city in 262 
B.C., when the besieged emperor, knowing the jeal- 
ousy of the wife of his besieger, caused a life- 
sized female puppet to dance on the city wall. 
The ruse succeeded; and the jealous wife, lest 
he should possess the fair dancer, persuaded her 
husband to withdraw his forces. According to an- 
other story an early emperor and his consort were 
attending a puppet show, and the puppet made 
eyes at the empress so naturally that the king 
became jealous. 

Both traveling and resident shows are now 
179 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

found in China. The Secretary of the Legation of 
the Netherlands at Pekin some fifty years ago 
describes the two kinds of figures in use : wooden 
figures moved by thread, and leather ones worked 
by hand. Performances with the latter are known 
as ''sack plays," because the peripatetic player 
used formerly to support his booth upon his 
shoulders and conceal himself in a sack. Shadow 
play is on a still higher level and often of great 
charm. The following description is taken from 
the work of Herr Rehm, who has written a most ■ 
comprehensive history of the subject : " A mourn- 
ing son gives burnt offerings to the ruler of the 
kingdom of shadows, and begs to see the spirit ; 
of his dead mother, who appears to him and gives 
him comfort. Here a twilight scene is pictured, 
a pagoda in the background reflected in a lake. 
Wonderful music is heard and a transformation ^ 
takes place; the pagoda vanishes, and gleaming i 
rings of color appear out of which the mother J 
materializes." Besides these mystic represen- 
tations, scenes depicting every phase of Eastern 
life, the streets, the market-place, the shops, etc., 
are also given. 

Turkish shadow and puppet plays were prob- 
ably introduced from China. They are scarcely 
more than spectacles, and the dialogue is extem- 
i8o 






MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

pore. Several thirteenth-century Turkish plays 
are still in existence, and seventeen original 
manuscripts of plays which the Sultan Saladin 
enjoyed are preserved in Spain in the Library 
of the Escurial. Karagoz (''Black Eye"), the 
clownish character that has his counterpart in 
all the Western world, appears in both puppet 
and shadow plays. He is represented as brutal 
and lustful. The pieces of the Turkish theater 
have never yet been printed, so that it is difh- 
cult to establish the laws of their construction; 
but Maindron says: "There must be intrigue, 
and the play must be obscene, to give satisfaction 
to a Turkish audience, though it rises at times 
to the highest solemnity"; and Rehm states that 
there are pieces free from unclean wit and licen- 
tiousness. 

In Siam, shadow play is an individual and 

highly developed art. The subjects of the play, 

or Nang, are taken from the Ramayana, and the 

' characters are those also pictured upon the 

temple walls. The figures, which are ingenious, 

I differ from any previously described. All the 

\ episodes are pricked out on an ox-hide which is 

1 fastened to a wooden standard and moved back 

and forth before the curtain, so that the light 

I from behind brings the picture into relief; some- 

i8i 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

times as many as twenty people are needed to 
move the hide. Besides the operators there are 
five masks and two reciters or interpreters, to 
explain the pictures, as well as a jester. Perform- 
ances in Siam, as in Java, are not public, but 
are given for special festivals, funerals, etc., in 
private houses and at court. In content and por- 
trayal the play is unrestricted and obscene. 

Shadow and marionette plays are also found 
in the provinces of Turkestan, in Burma, Arabia, 
and Persia, and differ but slightly from those 
described. It is interesting to note that, objec- 
tionable as we think them in content and action, 
they are said to have improved primitive condi- 
tions; at least they reflect the life and feeling of 
the people. 

For the Japanese, puppet play is not only a 
means of popular entertainment, but, according 
to Herr Rehm, of great artistic as well as spiritual 
significance, and one may seek long in the scenic 
art of all peoples for anything similar. Its age 
is not known, but it flourished in the middle of 
the seventeenth century, and in 1730 had reached 
a very high degree of excellence. Quite in con- 
trast to the practice in other countries, the 
players or movers appear upon the stage with I 
the figures, either in domino or in gayly colored * 
182 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

ceremonial clothes. So large and heavy are the 
puppets, and so complicated their mechanism, 
that sometimes it takes two or three '^ movers'' 
to manipulate a single one. The words of the 
text are recited in rhythm, and the tempo is 
altered to suit the action. The reciters sit with 
the musicians at the side of the stage on a rolling 
disk or turntable, and change after every act. 
Some of the reciters achieve great reputation 
and receive large remuneration. What with 
movers, lamplighters, musicians, reciters, and 
others, the force employed for a single perform- 
ance sometimes numbers more than a hundred. 

In the Western world puppet play found great 
favor, and first of all in Italy. The celebrated 
Italian physician and mathematician, Girolamo 
Cardano, wrote enthusiastically of it in 1550, 
telling of the wonderful perfection with which it 
imitated human movements. "An entire day," 
he says, "would not be sulEcient in which to 
describe those puppets that play, fight, shoot, 
dance, and play musical instruments." 

The puppet play of Italy is closely related to 
the Commedia delV Arte, which has had an impor- 
tant part in the history of the Italian stage, 
winning scant praise from higher circles, but 
appealing strongly to the popular mind, and 
183 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

proving of acknowledged ethical value in ridi- 
culing the foolishness and errors of its time. Its 
chief characteristic was the improvised dialogue, 
a mere outline of a plot being the only permanent 
material. The original comic character, Arlec- 
chino, was often very witty, and he was allowed 
a freedom of speech not permitted in more dig- 
nified drama. He filled the place of the jester at 
mediaeval courts and of the cartoonist to-day. 
With the lapse of time, the Commedia delV Arte 
gradually introduced more system into its per- 
formances, and rose to a higher plane. The pup- 
pet play underwent a very similar development, 
though, in its less pretentious forms, the tradi- 
tion of the unwritten text was still preserved. 
Arlecchino's successors are found, in a series of 
comic characters, in the puppet play of different 
countries, the Italian Pulcinella, the French 
Polichinelle and Pierrot, the German Hanswurst, 
and the English Punch being the best known. 
According to their country they are in turn 
burlesque, wanton, cheat or drunkard. Pul- 
cinella with his humps, monstrous nose, and 
other physical peculiarities, points directly back 
to the Maccus of the Romans, their clown or 
common jester. In a long white dress and pointed 
cap, he is a half - burlesque and wholly jolly 
184 



I 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

character, whose language and actions are not 
always choice; an interloper, and something of 
a coward. 

Puppet shows have been more generally en- 
joyed in Italy than in any other European coun- 
try, and there as elsewhere have strongly re- 
flected national tastes. A special feature of the 
Italian puppet theater was its beautiful dancing; 
its ballets and operas achieved great reputation. 
Little street shows delighted the masses, and 
more pretentious ones were frequently given in 
the houses of the nobility and middle classes as 
well as in public theaters frequented by many 
distinguished people. Leone Allacci, librarian of 
the Vatican under Alexander VII, went nightly 
to performances. Well-known pieces, among them 
Machiavelli's Mandragola, were often given as 
marionette plays in the artistic and literary cir- 
cles of Florence and Naples. Many of the pieces 
abounded in bombast, sarcastic wit, and hits at 
social and political personages, since the wooden 
actors were allowed a liberty of speech not per- 
mitted to live ones ; but when they ridiculed too 
freely affairs of Church and State, they, like the 
regular theaters, were suppressed. 

In France, puppet play had its origin in cer- 
tain religious ceremonies, the most celebrated 

185 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

of which were the Mitouries at Dieppe, half- 
pagan pantomimes in which the figures were 
moved by threads. They were driven from the 
churches about the middle of the seventeenth 
century; but they spread into the country, and 
were given in the doorways of convents and 
churches. Their secular use dates from the time 
of Louis XIV, when Jean Brioche set up his 
booth for puppets on the Pont Neuf , and carried 
on his profession of extracting teeth between 
performances. He was followed by a long suc- 
cession of players whose theaters enjoyed pros- 
perity and fame, and were operated by descend- 
ants of the same family for generations. 

French puppet play has had a varied and es- 
pecially rich development. Great authors have 
delighted in it. Satire and witty epigram have 
abounded. How completely it has mirrored the * 
events of the times is shov/n by the fact that, 
during the French Revolution, the puppet hero 
was daily guillotined. Like Pulcinella in Italy^ 
Polichinelle had many variants. One of these, 
the Lyonnais Guignol, supplanted Polichinelle in 
Paris, and gave his name to the show now known 
as the Guignol Theater. 

George Sand gave charming puppet plays in 
her home; Henri Signoret produced with his 
i86 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

puppets celebrated dramas of world literature 
not known to the great stage; and Le Mercier de 
Neville aroused for it the interest of a number 
of artists, including Dore, who painted some of 
the dolls. But the golden age of the marionettes 
which delighted these brilliant geniuses has 
passed; of all the ambulant shows for children 
few are now found. 

English puppet shows were never so highly 
prized as those of Latin countries ; but when under 
Puritan rule the regular theaters were closed, 
the puppets escaped the general edict, became 
the vehicle of public opinion, and reached their 
highest development. 

The Spectator (no. xiv) has preserved the 
memory of a famous puppet theater in London, 
set up near St. Paul's, in the following letter of 
remonstrance: — 

Sir, — I have been, for twenty years under-sexton 
of this parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and have 
not missed tolling in to prayers six times in all those 
years; which office I have performed to my great sat- 
isfaction, until this fortnight last past, during which 
time I find my congregation taking the warning of 
my bell, morning and evening, to go to a puppet 
show set forth by one Powell under the Piazzas. 
By this means, I have not only lost my two custom- 
ers whom I used to place for six-pence apiece over 

187 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

against Mrs. Rachael Eyebright, but Mrs. Rachel 
herself is gone thither also. ... I desire you would 
lay all this before the world, that I may not be made 
such a tool for the future, and that Punchinello may 
choose hours less canonical. As things are now, Mr. 
Powell has a full congregation, while we have a very 
thin house; which if you can remedy, you will very 
much oblige, sir, yours, &c. 

Besides the theaters in London, the ambulant 
sort flourished in the little towns; and Cruik- 
shank and Hogarth have left us pictures that 
show the humor of street scenes of which they 
form a part. 

In Belgium, Austria, and Holland, the puppet 
theater attained great popularity; and in Bo- 
hemia it is the only form of dramatic art now 
given in the native tongue. 

It is in Germany that the art of puppet play 
is preserved in its highest form, and there we find 
the only recent attempts to improve it on the 
artistic and literary side. Its early development 
was similar to that in other countries, except 
that the effects were more gruesome and bizarre, 
and the humor heavy. Also the wooden Kobold 
and Tattermann, worshiped in the dark ages as 
household gods, became puppets worked by 
wires. In the seventeenth century, the plays 
i88 



I 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

were very popular, taking the place of the regu- 
lar drama which had come under the ban of the 
Church, though later they, too, collided with au- 
thority when they meddled with politics. The 
Germans, always adept at toy-making, made toy 
puppet theaters. Goethe had one when a boy, 
and ascribed to it his earliest interest in drama. 
At twenty he wrote a puppet play, afterwards 
given at the court of Weimar (his Faust was in 
part suggested by this play of Dr. Faustus) ; and 
later he contributed six minor plays to the puppet 
stage. Joseph Haydn also wrote for the puppet 
theaters, contributing five little operettas which 
Prince Esterhazy caused to be performed at his 
castle in Hungary. His Symphony for Children's 
Instruments was probably an overture for one 
of these marionette pieces. 

The veteran puppet player to-day is "Papa 
Schmid," whose theater in Munich has a world- 
wide reputation. For more than half a century 
Papa Schmid has aimed to meet the real needs 
of children, and has had his reward in being the 
best -beloved man in Munich. Children have 
Waited to catch a glimpse of him as he came 
out of the theater; for, for them, the names of 
"Schmid" and "Casparl," the part he always 
plays, are synonymous. At the outset of his 
189 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

career as puppet showman, Schmid won the 
friendly interest of Count von Pocci, who wrote 
the play for the opening performance, and con- 
tinued throughout his lifetime to write for the 
little theater. When a few years ago there was 
a question of Papa Schmid's retiring from the 
profession owing to the constantly recurring 
necessity for moving his show from one site to 
another, the city magistrates, urged by Dr. 
Kerschensteiner, superintendent of schools, voted 
unanimously to build for it a permanent residence. 
Doubtless most of these magistrates had spent 
many a happy hour in boyhood watching the 
antics of 'Xasparl." The theater was built on 
one of the small park-spaces of the city and 
leased to Papa Schmid. It is rich in scenery and 
puppets, having nearly a thousand of the latter, 
and is in all respects a true home of art. Besides 
the pieces of Count Pocci, who contributed no 
less than fifty-three, it produces the works of 
several other well-known writers, among them 
those of the dialect poet, Franz von Kobell. 

One or two other recent attempts to produce 
puppet plays of a high order deserve mention. 
The Bavarian Jubilee Exhibition, a few years ago 
in Nuremberg, had a puppet theater which was 
set in operation by a group of men of note. 
190 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

Arthur Schnizler, Maeterlinck, and others con- 
tributed pieces. Even the stage was an adapta- 
tion of Reinhardt's famous revolving stage. But 
these revivals are in the interest of art and lit- 
erature, while Papa Schmid's theater remains 
unique in its effort to produce plays of a pure 
and elevated kind, suited to child-nature. 

The question now arises: What value for the 
modern educator has an art which has apparently 
played out its part? Are the historical, moral, 
literary, and artistic values which it has had in 
the past transferable to modern conditions, or 
have they now been transmuted into other forms 
of expression ? 

Dr. Georg Jacob points out that the develop- 
ment of the magic lantern and the stereopticon 
satisfies the masses, and popular concerts and 
comic newspapers gratify the desire for music 
and humor. He still believes, however, in the 
usefulness of the puppet play, possessing as it 
does such a fruitful element of caricature in the 
movability of its figures; and it is not impossi- 
ble that a gifted artist will yet bring it to new 
honors. 

Any one who has watched a throng of small 
I boys and girls as they sit in the tiny roped-off 
square before a Httle chdtelet in Paris on the 
191 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

Champs-Ely sees, or those that gather in Papa 
Schmid's exquisite little theater in Munich, or 
before the tiny booths at fairs and exhibitions 
anywhere in Italy, must have noticed the rap- 
turous delight of those small people. The tiny 
stage, its equipment, accessories, the diminu- 
tive garments and belongings of the puppets 
satisfy the childish love of miniature copies of 
things of the grown-up world. Their animistic 
tendencies make it easy to endow the wooden 
figures with human qualities and bring them into 
close rapport with their own world of fancy. The 
voice coming from some unknown region adds 
the mystery which children dearly love, and 
before the magic of fairy tales their eyes grow 
wide with wonder. The stiff movements of the 
puppets, their sudden collapses from dignity, are 
irresistibly funny to the little people, and the 
element of buffoonery is doubly comical in its 
mechanical presentation. For grown people, too, 
the mirth-provoking capacity of puppets is per- 
haps the greatest factor in their popularity, for 
they can caricature in a way impossible on the 
regular stage. Professor Wundt maintains that 
their ministration to the sense of the comic is 
their chief function. He claims that puppet play 
had not one origin, but many; that it arose in 
192 



I 



MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

different localities out of the need of creating 
comic figures. 

It is difficult to analyze satisfactorily its appeal 
in this particular; but, among the many theories 
of the comic, the factor which seems most promi- 
nent in puppet play is the feeling of self-superior- 
ity to the situation. In the case of the wooden 
manikins, this feeling is necessarily greatly in- 
tensified, thus giving rise to a degree of fun that 
would be impossible were the same thing acted 
by real players. The element of the unexpected, 
too, which contributes to the comic, is far oftener 
brought into play by the unanticipated evolu- 
tions of the puppets in their occasional contra- 
dictions of the law of gravity, than would be 
possible with living actors. 

The question, after all, of the right of survival, 
or revival, resolves itself, perhaps, into the ques- 
tion of the value of puppet play for entertain- 
ment pure and simple, which is at least one of the 
great primary functions of all true drama. The 
masses of the people, stunted and dulled by hard, 
1 monotonous labor in crowded cities, must have 
I relaxation and amusement. The beneficial effects 
;of laughter, both physical and emotional, have 
been always recognized. The effect of a hearty 
laugh in restoring emotional tone and balance 

193 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

has come to be recognized as a distinct therapeu- 
tic agency. Some sanatoriums, that of Battle 
Creek, for example, actually have ^'laughing 
exercises" as a part of the curative regime. 
Laughter is of greatest importance, perhaps, in 
the upper grades of society, where convention- 
ality constantly makes for the repression of 
natural, spontaneous expression of feeling. Psy- 
chologists are telling us to-day that laughter is 
dying out, that the world is forgetting how to 
laugh. 

There is a very general tendency in this coun- 
try to adapt for school use everything that is of 
recognized educational value. The puppet play, 
it is true, could be brought to school. While we 
would scarcely advocate its introduction as mere 
entertainment, doubtless some subjects could be 
vivified and made more interesting by means of 
marionettes. For the large number of children 
who never get beyond the grades, the deepen- 
ing of the impressions, in literature and history, 
would be of special value, as also for older chil- 
dren the training in writing dialogues and de- 
claiming, and the practice in fashioning puppets, 
costumes, scenery, and properties, and in acting 
as operator and showman. But better yet, put 
little puppet theaters into settlement and play- 
194 



1 






MARIONETTE OR PUPPET PLAY 

ground, into boys' club and social center, into 
the small park or recreation place. Let us have, 
too, the larger sort of booth or chdtelet, such as 
may be found for the season in fair and exhibi- 
tion grounds abroad. If less complete, they have 
at least the advantage in warm weather of being 
out of doors. Give fairy tales and little comedies, 
and open up for children a land of wonder and 
delight. Finally create a marionette theater run 
on high and artistic principles,^ even as Papa 
Schmid'3 has been; and make it in the end a 
civic institution. 

^ In 19 13 a national marionette society was started in New 
York. 



XI 

PAGEANTRY 

Any account of present-day methods of appeal 
to the dramatic instinct would be incomplete 
without some consideration of pageantry in its 
various early forms and its recent developments 
and applications. In its wider meaning, it began 
thousands of years ago. There was glorious 
pageantry in the religious ceremonials of ancient 
Egypt as we see them on the walls of Luxor and 
Denderah. The Parthenon frieze has fixed for- 
ever the splendid procession which yearly as- 
cended to the Acropolis. Cleopatra depended 
on the gorgeous effect when she glided down the 
river Cydnus in her barge to meet the Roman 
conqueror. Modern writers call all these "pag- 
eants"; but the word was first used in connection 
with the mediaeval miracle plays. 

When driven from the church, the miracle 
plays were transferred first to the churchyard 
and then to the city gates; later still, that a 
larger number of the people might see them, the 
custom arose of moving them from place to place 
196 



I 



PAGEANTRY 

called "stations," in different parts of the town. 
For this, movable platforms, called "pageants," 
were used — two-storied theaters on wheels, of 
which the lower story served for dressing-room, 
while the upper was the stage for the acting. 
The word "pageant," at first applied to the scaf- 
fold, came to signify the scene acted upon it. 
Later it was variously applied to different parts 
of a procession; to erections, floats, etc., as well 
as to impersonations of allegorical or grotesque 
characters and even to entire elaborate spectacles. 
Descriptions which have been preserved show 
the character of these representations. 

In coronations the element of pageantry was 
strongly manifest. One of the most magnificent 
of all was given when Charles V was made king 
of Italy and Lombardy. The water pageants on 
the Thames on various occasions, and the fes- 
tivals on the Arno in Florence, have furnished 
splendid spectacles. We find the element of 
pageantry also in military, civic, and state pro- 
cessions. From earliest times victorious gen- 
erals have, on their return from war, passed 
through the capital city with pomp and magnifi- 
cent ceremony. The "Triumphs" of Roman 
generals were famous, wherein were displayed the 
spoils of war, and conquered kings and queens 
197 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

were made to walk captive in their train in order 
to enhance the effect of victory. In funeral pro- 
cessions pageantry played a most important 
part; that of Queen Eleanor from Hornby to 
London, which covered twelve days, is historical. 
Those of great naval and military heroes at all 
times, as of Nelson, Wellington, and Grant, have 
been impressive spectacles; and the custom of 
gorgeous funeral processions in honor of espe- 
cially distinguished citizens still prevails. 

The elaborate court masques and revels of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries grew out 
of the processions and pageants of the Middle 
Ages, and preserved very strongly their spec- 
tacular or pageant features. They were written 
to celebrate great occasions, such as marriages 
of royalty and nobility, and achieved great popu- 
larity, reaching their height in England in the 
time of James I. Royalty not only patronized 
these masques, but frequently took part in them. 
Queen Henrietta Maria acted in Ben Jonson's 
Clorinda in 1630, and Queen Anne acted in one 
of the most brilliant ever given, that in honor 
of the Spanish Ambassador's visit to Hampton 
Court in 1704, when Queen Elizabeth's dresses 
were brought from the Tower for the occasion. 
Lists of expenses have been preserved which give 
198 



PAGEANTRY 

an idea not only of the great cost, but of the 
sumptuousness of the apparel worn. Various 
chroniclers also have left vivid descriptions of 
them. Inigo Jones, Albrecht Diirer, and other 
artists helped to make them beautiful. 

Besides these spectacles of the more preten- 
tious sort, a kind of rude and rustic pageantry is 
discernible in many old observances of various 
lands, such as Yule-tide customs and the social 
ceremonies connected with Twelfth Night and 
Harvest Home. The carnivals for Mardi Gras 
in the Catholic countries of Europe, as well as 
in our own New Orleans, are manifestations of 
the same tendency to enjoy and take part in 
dramatic spectacles. 

But we do not have to turn to the past for 
splendid displays; there are numerous survivals, 
though the parades of the Renaissance have dis- 
appeared. In almost all monarchical countries, 
brilliant exhibitions of the kind are still in vogue. 
The English Parliament is opened with great 
circumstance, and the arrival in provincial cities 
of the Judges of Assize are civic events of first im- 
portance. The Lord Mayor's show in London is 
another of these survivals; and the bride of roy- 
alty enters the capital to-day like the princess 
of a fairy tale. Multitudes throng to see these 
199 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

shows that are free to the humblest subject; and 
the means that were used to gratify people in 
the Middle Ages, and to impress them with the 
greatness of monarchical and mihtary power, 
still foster loyalty, or at least insure the outward 
appearance of it. 

The Catholic Church, with all its processional 
adjuncts and impressive symbolic display, its 
various commemorative and initiatory cere- 
monies, makes extensive use of pageantry, and 
has always thus addressed itself to the imagina- 
tion and emotions of its people. 

From very early days universities, more espe- 
cially on the Continent, have made use of pag- 
eantry. On anniversaries, they present their 
entire histories, and in their academic proces- 
sions, in costumes and ceremonies, we have mod- 
ern examples of the ancient pageant. The same 
element comes out strongly in the dramatic 
rituals, supported by tradition, of secret societies 
and brotherhoods. 

Lately there has been a remarkable outburst 
of the spirit of pageantry that has given it new 
meaning. Beginning in 1905 with that of Sher- 
borne, England, celebrations have been held in 
most of the larger English towns and cities, 
wherein authors, teachers, artists, clergy, the 
200 



i 



PAGEANTRY 

working-classes, and, in some cases, professional 
actors, have all united in reviving local history. 
Each of these pageants has had its individual 
characteristic, and has expressed some special 
principle. In the Sherborne pageant the feeling 
of comradeship was stimulated. The making of 
the costumes and properties required research 
and ingenuity; and those who provided the music 
revived old motifs, and composed new ones. They 
acted out eleven centuries of the town's history, 
presented in as many episodes. Representatives 
from the town's namesake, Sherborn, Massa- 
chusetts, were present by invitation, and ap- 
peared in the final tableau when the mother and 
daughter cities were personified. 

In the pageant at Winchester, the capital of 
early England, where Alfred the Great had his 
seat, national rather than local development was 
the prominent feature. One was transported 
to the days when Birinus drove out pagan wor- 
ship, and even to old Roman times. The career 
of Alfred the Great as warrior and peacemaker 
was pictured, and that of William of Wykeham, 
ecclesiastic and statesman, founder of the college 
and rebuilder of the cathedral. 

A noticeable feature of modern pageant-giving 
has been the bringing together of all classes of 

201 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

society. In the pageant of Bury St. Edmunds, 
held within the ruins of the old monastery, no 
less than sixteen clergymen took part, and the 
poorer classes were as fully represented. The 
squire who played the part of Richard the Lion- 
hearted was attended by a coachman in the role 
of knight. Under the direction of students and 
archaeologists, the towns-people made all the cos- 
tumes and properties; and it was their boast 
that, except for one carpenter, the whole pageant 
was given without pay for services. 

It adds interest to the pageant when the actual 
descendants of historic characters take part. In 
one given at Romsey the charcoal-burner Purkis, 
who brought back the body of William Rufus 
from the forest, was represented by a Uneal 
descendant. 

In the Oxford pageant, a cordial relation was 
established between town and gown. The inci- 
dents were chiefly those of university history 
and were given on the playing-fields of Magda- 
len College, forty-three hundred people taking 
part. Oxford professors wrote the pageant-book, 
and Mr. Beerbohm Tree acted. The pageant, 
lasting six days, gave scenes from the time of 
St. Frideswide (727 a.d.) to that of George III. 
Ancient chants were revived and many striking 
202 



PAGEANTRY 

episodes acted. The legend of Fair Rosamond 
was one; the funeral of Amy Robsart another; 
Robert, Earl of Leicester, headed a royal pro- 
cession, and Charles I made his entry in his 
barge of state. One of the most effective of all 
was a masque and interlude for tiny children, 
written by one of the academic body; in which, 
as ants and bees issuing from the "Castle of 
Industry," they performed a graceful ballet. 

In America pageants have lately come into 
the national and civic life. Thus far they have 
taken on a much more varied character than their 
English prototypes, yet they have a certain 
similarity. Most of them portray the history of 
the different towns and cities where they have 
been acted. Perhaps a description of the one at 
Hartford, Connecticut, though it was not on so 
large a scale as those of Quebec and Philadelphia, 
will give a fair idea of the English historical pag- 
eant adapted to conditions here. 

The Plartford pageant celebrated the dedica- 
tion of the new stone bridge over the Connecti- 
cut, and lasted three days. It began by pictur- 
ing the early settlement in America of the Dutch 
traders and of the English. Then followed the 
coming of the little colony led by the Reverend 
Thomas Hooker to the river, and the founding 
203 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

of the city. Processions representing soldiers, 
sailors, and citizens of colonial times were made 
up of Trinity College students and of the military 
organizations of the city and the State. Historic 
scenes were acted upon the banks of the river; 
where also, on a stage of ample proportions, was 
given an elaborately planned series of tableaux, 
the prologue to which was written by a resident 
college professor and recited by one of the local 
clergy in cap and gown. An Indian camp upon 
the bank added picturesqueness to the scene, as 
the smoke of the camp-fires rose upward through 
the trees; and Indians with their squaws and 
children appeared among wigwams, or glided 
across the river in canoes, while flocks of sheep 
and droves of cattle appeared along its banks. 
The Charter-Oak incident was acted, likewise 
the execution of Nathan Hale. Brighter pictures 
gave a glimpse of social life. There was a ball in 
honor of Lafayette; a minuet was danced by 
twenty couples, and the distinguished French- 
man was showered with roses. The pageant 
closed with the signing of the contract for the 
new bridge, thus bringing the history of the city 
up to date. 

In July, 1909, the States of New York and 

Vermont united in a seven days' celebration of 

204 



PAGEANTRY 

the tercentenary of the discovery of Lake Cham- 
plain, in which members of French, English, and 
American organizations participated. Here again 
was seen the international fraternity of feeling 
which the pageant celebrations have called forth 
in England. Representatives of these countries, 
that had fought with each other for possession 
of the lake, met ojficially on their former battle- 
ground to honor their heroes. Fifty Mohawk 
braves acted the foundation of the great Indian 
confederacy by Hiawatha; and their "Smoking 
the Pipe of Peace," their hunting contests, a corn 
festival, stag and canoe races, war-dances, death- 
chants, battle sacrifices, the "ceremony of adop- 
tion," and the representation of a fortified Indian 
village revived many a historic scene. 

Some of the smaller towns and cities have 
given especially effective and successful pageants; 
and the possibilities of awakening interest and 
stimulating cooperation and creative effort of 
the entire community is, of course, far greater 
than in the larger places. For months the pageant 
is an intimate part of the life of the people. Farm- 
ers walk miles to rehearse their few lines ; and, 
for days before the performance, villagers are 
seen in full costume passing through the streets. 

Such was the pageant at Deerfield, Massa- 
205 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

chusetts. Deerfield preserves in remarkable de- 
gree its old colonial features. Its stage was a 
natural amphitheater, with trees and bushes for 
background and a meadow stretching to one side. 
Beginning with English scenes of 1630, rustic 
revels and Maypole dancing, the lady of the 
manor on her white palfrey and a group of sober 
Puritans attending, they passed to typical New 
England scenes, Indian home life, and the pur- 
chasing of land from the red men. Through star- 
light, an ox cart, slowly approaching, brought the 
first settler and his wife to the locaHty. The bat- 
tle of Bloody Brook was suggested by the sound 
of rifle-shots in the wood hard by. Meeting-house 
and school scenes and a village tea-party were 
among the quiet and peaceful episodes, while 
thrilling ones were afforded by the attack on the 
town by Indians in 1704, and the massacring 
and carrying away of some of the inhabitants 
to Canada. The call to arms of patriots in Revo- 
lutionary times was acted in a final scene, and 
a tableau of the Grand Army saluting the flag 
given at the close. 

In some of the towns, the summer colony of 
city people and the residents have united in 
giving a pageant, and a better mutual under- 
standing and a spirit of comradeship have re- 
206 



PAGEANTRY 

suited. This was true of the one given in Bronx- 
ville, New York, where a little group of well- 
known people, including Tudor Jenks, Gouver- 
neur Morris, Violet Oakley, and the late Richard 
Watson Gilder, wrote words and music, and de- 
signed costumes and properties for the produc- 
tion. Peterborough, New Hampshire, and its 
summer colony gave a musical pageant in honor 
of the composer MacDowell, who for years had 
made the place his summer home. MacDowell's 
own music, interpreted by dance and song, was 
the background for the chief events of Peter- 
borough's history. The festival will be repeated 
from time to time, making the town the Mecca 
of music-lovers. 

The Hendrik - Hudson festival called forth 
considerable censure from public-minded citi- 
zens. While it only illustrated, presumably, the 
mistakes of smaller undertakings, the extensive 
scale on which it was carried out brought them 
more conspicuously to public notice. Notwith- 
standing the immense sums spent to adorn the 
city, notwithstanding its naval and land parades 
and its magnificent show, the spirit of fellowship 
and good feeling which should have animated 
the undertaking was lamentably lacking. The 
citizens themselves had little part in the com- 
207 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

memoration. Many paid professionals were em- 
ployed, but little local talent, and the masses 
were made to feel that they had no part. Some 
of the best reports stigmatized it as a travesty 
upon the name of the modern "historical" pag- 
eant. 

Pageants have come to be a part of the "sane 
Fourth of July." In Springfield, Massachusetts, 
where the first for this purpose was given, there 
was a civic procession in which the citizens' in- 
dustries were represented on different floats. All 
the population entered with zest into the under- 
taking and aided in the general display, to the 
notable increase of civic pride. 

Pageants have been given indoors, but they 
have not differed materially from those already 
described. They have been used for propaganda. 
"The World in Pageant," given in Boston, in 
191 1, illustrated the growth of foreign missions. 
Of like sort was a pageant under the auspices 
of the "Boston 1915 Organization," which pre- 
sented a series of dramatic scenes showing man's 
progress from cave Hf e to city Kfe, and suggesting 
the world's future as well as protraying its past. 

Others have been given for definite school uses. 
Higher institutions, as well as grammar and 
primary schools, are making use of pageants. 
208 



PAGEANTRY 

Northwestern University has represented on its 
campus, in poetic and dramatic fashion, six pe- 
riods in the history of Illinois in as many scenes; 
Ripon, Wisconsin, a small college town, taking 
the idea from the Oxford pageant, portrayed 
both local and university history; in Knoxville, 
Tennessee, high-school and university students 
united in giving a pageant, in which not only past 
history was revived by the acting-out of the 
*' Winning of the West," but the flora and fauna 
of the region, together with its agriculture, fores- 
try, mineral and mining resources, were shown. 

In June, 1909, Harvard gave Joan of Arc, 
which, though ostensibly only an outdoor play, 
deserves mention among university pageants; 
for, though there was more speaking than is usual 
in the pageant proper, in grouping, effective 
massing, and the general scale on which it was 
carried out, the pageant element was prominent. 
Like the Oxford pageant, it was semi-professional 
in character; for, while college students and citi- 
zens in large numbers made up troops of soldiers 
and crowds of clergy, peasantry, and noblemen, 
the leading role was played by Maude Adams, 
and the color effects were in charge of John W. 
Alexander. Interest in history other than our 
own was here aroused; and the international good 
209 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 



feeling, so frequently called out by English and 
American civic pageants, was again instanced by 
the gift from France of a replica of the original 
Oriflamme. 

Doubtless the tendency of outdoor entertain- 
ments in colleges and higher schools will more 
and more drift pageant-ward as its picturesque 
and educational advantages are realized. Normal 
schools have already begun. The Boston Normal 
School, in 1908, presented the whole history of 
education. In the same year the Brooklyn Train- 
ing-School for Teachers gave an indoor pageant 
in seventeen scenes, which represented education 
in its Oriental, Classical, Mediaeval, Modern 
European, and American types. The State Nor- 
mal School at Clarion, Pennsylvania, gives every 
year at commencement a pageant in which each 
class takes part, representing not only American 
and English scenes, but those of Roman history. 

In some of the training-schools for teachers, 
pageants are given in which children are actors. 
As the result of a study of the Crusades, a play 
festival was held in the training-school at New 
Paltz, New York, in June, 1907. Children pa- 
raded through its streets in costume, and took 
part in tableaux in the City Hall. In making cos- 
tumes and paraphernalia, classwork in manual 
210 



1 



PAGEANTRY 

training, sewing, art, and history, had all been 
turned to account during the weeks of prepara- 
tion. 

The school festival is closely related to pag- 
eantry when it takes the form of a procession, as 
in the celebration of national holidays, Wash- 
ington's Birthday, Lincoln Day, etc., when his- 
torical scenes and episodes are reproduced. In 
the children's village of the Seybert Institution, 
where orphans from three to fifteen years of age 
are cared for, the school festival has been put 
to pedagogical use in presenting subjects objec- 
tively to children who have little power to visual- 
ize. On Hallowe'en they present great historical 
characters such as Columbus, Hudson, and Ful- 
ton. The story of Hiawatha has been acted by a 
group of boys, and the work of preparation cor- 
related with that of history and reading in the 
school. 

Settlements everywhere are organizing pag- 
eants. One given in Prospect Park by two hun- 
dred children from Brooklyn settlements, illus- 
trates their possibilities both for education and 
amusement in the case of little people. Episodes 
from the childhood of various American heroes, 
Lincoln, Washington, Franklin, and others, were 
selected for portrayal, and scenes from our early 

211 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

history, such as Pocahontas saving the life of 
John Smith, the capture of Daniel Boone, his 
trial, sentence, and escape. Indian life and 
dancing were reproduced, and various planta- 
tion scenes, the latter enabling a group of col- 
ored children to have a part. As shown by the 
children's questions, great interest was aroused 
in the history and geography of the places pic- 
tured as well as in the different characters; and 
qualities contributing to the greatness of the men 
and women represented were emphasized in a way 
to leave a valuable and lasting lesson. As in 
other efforts of the kind, not only did the weeks 
of preparation serve to keep children occupied 
and interested, but the training developed valua- 
ble traits and habits and had a socializing effect; 
even a gang of rowdies, at first inclined to be 
rebellious, became obedient and helpful in pre- 
serving order among the younger children. 

But enough has been said, doubtless, to indi- 
cate the adaptations of which the pageant ele- 
ment is capable, and the variety of pageant 
types appearing in our midst. Their influence 
does not differ greatly from that of children's 
play-acting, dancing, or reproduced story- telling. 
But it appeals to a greatly larger public. The 
actual moral lessons, also, that can be conveyed 

212 



PAGEANTRY 

are manifold; zeal, enthusiasm, self-sacrifice, 
and a spirit of cooperation are brought out; 
narrow prejudice is lessened, a love of research is 
implanted, and a capacity for usefulness often- 
times discovered. The historic sense is brought 
into play; costimies, customs, and manners of 
the present day all take on new meaning, interest, 
and significance, as interpreted in the light of 
the past; and associations are awakened which 
give to familiar and commonplace things a to- 
tally new aspect. Even where the pageant, as 
already intimated, has not always been carried 
out on an ideal basis, it inculcates valuable les- 
sons. But its function of simple pleasure-giving 
and adding to the brightness of lives must rank 
as of prime importance. The world loves a spec- 
tacle, and Court, Church, and State have recog- 
nized from time immemorial its power to awaken 
emotional response. In these democratic days, 
the pageant fulfills this function and helps to 
satisfy the inherent craving for magnificence and 
show. 

While some of the pageants have been mere 
processions, and others, in which acting figured 
prominently, have been only a succession of his- 
torical episodes, many have essayed well-con- 
structed drama. According to some critics, it is 
213 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

from pageantry of the last sort that will be devel- 
oped a truly American type of drama, which shall 
give the quality of our civilization, the impulse 
of the people toward art, and its expression. If 
only as art education the pageant is worthy of a 
place. It appeals often to those whom beauty in 
more subtle forms fails to impress, and, because 
of a variety of elements which attract, furnishes, 
all unconsciously, aesthetic experience. As many 
of the pageants of the Middle Ages were planned 
by great artists, so the skill of the modern artist 
is called into requisition. Already improvement 
in street decoration appears, the unified scheme 
of the pageant having served as a needed lesson. 

In civic education, pageantry has not only 
proved a means of arousing community spirit, 
but is making people prouder of their town and 
its history, and ambitious to live up to the stand- 
ards set by their forefathers. Patriotism takes 
the place of former apathy and the too-prevalent 
spirit of vainglory. 

Valuable as is the pageant in the different ways 
enumerated, one cannot escape the impression 
that in its recent form, that of the English his- 
torical civic pageant, it is probably a passing 
fashion. Cities emulate one another; and grad- 
ually efforts become less spontaneous, less an 
214 



PAGEANTRY 

outgrowth of the real Hfe and spirit of the peo- 
ple, and more imposed from the outside. Even 
should this be so, the truth remains that it has 
been of service in many different lines; its per- 
manent effect may possibly be foretold by the 
recently changed character of our Fourth of 
July celebrations, and the enlarged scope of our 
school festivals, for which the history and nat- 
ural resources of our country a£ford abundant 
materials. Particularly as carried out by chil- 
dren, both in school and other institutions, is the 
pageant likely to retain its popularity, since it 
appeals to them on so many sides. All the bene- 
fits of the large civic pageant and more can be 
brought into the smaller and less pretentious 
undertakings of school and settlement, stimulat- 
ing the sense of responsibihty, group spirit, 
enthusiasm, and ambition; habits of attention, 
concentration, and punctuality are a part of its 
discipline and training, no less than in the giving 
of a play. It has the advantage of being easily 
shaped to the needs of a group, and for historical 
events and anniversaries it is better than any 
play. Especially is it suited to shy and awkward 
children, since it requires acting of a more rudi- 
mentary sort than does the regularly staged 
performance. It tends to inspire affection and 
215 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

reverence for the past. For children who get 
ceremonial in no other way, not even in the 
church, its appeal is often powerful and lasting 
in effect. 



XII 

GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

In the preceding chapters we have noted the 
universality of the dramatic instinct and the 
diverse forms in which it finds its normal grati- 
fication. We have suggested also the psycho- 
logical bases on which these forms rest, that we 
may test thereby the worth of certain recent 
pedagogical innovations, derived, as has been 
shown, from institutions and customs that sprang 
up spontaneously among untutored peoples in 
ruder ages. Are these innovations being made 
in the wisest and best way? In the preceding 
mass of facts, what particular message is there 
for us? Can we derive therefrom rules for culti- 
vating, without overstimulating or perverting, 
the dramatic instinct, and thus direct it to fine 
issues? How are we to recognize and utilize its 
subtler manifestations? The one idea of drama- 
tization has gripped hard the pedagogic world; 
some of the fantastic and mistaken results have 
ibeen noted in passing; are there other means 
of attaining the desired ends? 
217 



l 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

The author does not believe it possible to lay 
down positive rules for the training of the dra- 
matic instinct. As soon as it becomes stereotyped, 
the spontaneity and enthusiasm which are its 
very hfe are lost. But there are certain fun- 
damental principles which, once mastered, will 
enable the teacher and settlement worker to 
devise and apply wisely methods of his own. 
These principles may be stated as follows: — 

1. The school training of the dramatic instinct 
differs in toto from professional training. 

2. The form of gratification of the dramatic 
instinct must be suited to the individual 
need. 

3. The material at hand must be sifted. 

4. The practical value of the so-called unprac- 
tical must be recognized. 

5. The training must be continuous, not 
spasmodic. 

6. It must arouse and deepen the sense of 
moral values. 

Let us see exactly what these principles mean. 
First, the aim of professional training is to per- 
fect an art, that of the school, club, or settlement; 
to develop the individual. The one strives for 
the finished product; for the other the product 
is secondary, almost negligible. The effort is, or 
218 



i 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

should be, to give new concepts and ideals; to 
free the imagination; to touch the feelings; to 
awaken eyes and ears to beauty; to cause the 
child to realize and express his individuality. 
When in his games, dancing, and acting he is 
coerced rather than guided; when dramatic 
talent rather than sensitiveness to dramatic 
appeal is encouraged; when excitement takes the 
place of wholesome stimulation, the relation of 
dramatic work to education has been misunder- 
stood. 

The second principle makes an enormous de- 
mand upon the time and S3mipathies of the 
teacher, no less than that he shall know his pupils 
in their homes and the probable influence of their 
environment as well as their individual tempera- 
ments, the conditions of the factories and sweat- 
shops in which those reached by the settlement 
are earning their living. Thus only can the 
teacher determine if they need active stimulus 
or passive gratification. It is a continuation of 
some of the admirable methods of the kinder- 
garten, carried into higher grades. Furthermore 
there must be discrimination in the kind of grati- 
fication offered to groups. Incidents scattered 
through the foregoing chapters illustrate these 
points. For the young people and children for 
219 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

whom Miss Herts labored, the play was un- 
doubtedly the best; it brightened the existence 
and enlivened the minds of workers who spent 
long days at sewing-machines, counters, or 
benches, and gave to boys and girls, used only 
to the sordid and unlovely sights of street and 
tenement, a store of beautiful thoughts and scenes 
on which imagination might safely build. By 
actively taking part in performances, girls not 
fitted for the professional stage were guided 
through the "stage-struck" period, and boys 
had an opportunity of venting their "street- 
gang" spirit and gratifying their love of admira- 
tion, by playing daring parts to audiences far 
outnumbering their usual neighborhood follow- 
ing. Or story-telling may be best, if children 
have enough visual background for it; or folk- 
dancing for girls who lead a sedentary life and 
need a physical stimulus, in which they may 
satisfy also the social instinct and gratify the 
sensuous side of their nature by rhythmic move- 
ment. For those whose horizons are narrow the 
moving picture is admirable. All children devise 
some form of play; but the plays and games super- 
vised by the school or club-leader offer the best 
means for developing a reverence for law and 
order and awakening a response to social and 
220 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

moral demands. The pageant appeals to a large 
group whether in community or school, serving 
the same purpose as the play, but having more 
intimate local or national interest. 

Third, even within those subjects that lend 
themselves most readily to dramatization, some 
material is unfit. Not all stories or historic 
happenings are suited to the purpose. Common 
sense, judgment, and a strong regard for the 
moral elevation of the child will be our best 
guides here. 

Fourth, our whole educational system has 
been tending of late more and more to fit the 
young to earn a good living, to recognize good 
sanitation, to judge good food, to prepare good 
meals, and to make good clothes. All this does 
not train boys and girls to be good citizens. The 
juvenile courts are showing the faults in a sys- 
tem that "pins its faith to what may be tabu- 
lated and scaled." The emotional nature, the 
longing for self-expression, are neither satisfied 
nor directed. It is difficult for the city school to 
keep pace with social changes. Formerly the 
home environment, especially in country dis- 
tricts, furnished a diversity of occupations which 
stimulated the imagination and developed the 
cultural side. Close family relations seem to be 

2,21 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

passing away. However much we may regret it, 
many of the functions which once belonged to 
the home have been transferred to the school, 
which must accept its added responsibilities. 
But the few ''unpractical cultural studies" that 
might replace the old sources of inspiration are 
now either discarded or grudgingly allowed an 
obscure place in the curriculum. They need to 
be restored, that we may ground well the char- 
racter of the child, soften his nature, energize 
him to noble ends. For this purpose nothing is 
better than a study of noble drama. " Every city 
has the criminals it deserves." Schools and settle- 
ments must see to it that the number be lessened. 

Fifth, that the training of the dramatic in- 
stinct be continuous requires a different appeal 
at each stage of development. The ''play-act- 
ing" that dehghts the child would be torture 
to the self-conscious age. Here comes in appro- 
priately training in criticism and technique, 
where the gratification will be passive, but no 
time will be lost by the diversion of interest. 

Sixth, children may acquire bodily grace; they 
may gain on the mental side through concentra- 
tion and exercise of memory; they may be in- 
structed, entertained, and inspired to express 
themselves — even to turn their expressiveness 

222 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

to creative ends; they may be stirred and quick- 
ened emotionally; yet, if they have not acquired 
a sense of values, of proportion, much of the train- 
ing goes for naught. They must learn to distin- 
guish what is trifling from what is of real worth; 
that '4ooks are not what count"; that virtue 
may coexist either with wealth or rank or with 
the humblest conditions of life; and that these 
are of value only in so far as they are a power 
for doing good; that even a desirable thing may 
be bought at too great a price. Only when it 
gives some understanding of the difference be- 
tween what is fundamental and essential and the 
merely superficial, external, and accidental, will 
the training come fully to its own. 

The value of dramatization as a tool of peda- 
gogy rests on its power of holding the pupiFs 
interest and attention without his voluntary or 
conscious effort. It conserves energy. But it 
must be sparingly used. It is a grave mistake 
to try to correlate dramatics with every subject. 
Learning must not be made too easy, to the 
weakening of the mental fiber. The close applica- 
tion and concentration demanded by the sterner 
studies are as necessary to the character as the 
cultivation of the sensibilities. Moreover the 
223 



DRAMATIC INSTINCT IN EDUCATION 

alternation of play and work is far more pedagogi- 
cal than a continuity of either; and no appeal 
to the dramatic instinct can be properly stimu- 
lating when it becomes a commonplace. 

It is evident that the attitude of the teacher 
should be sympathetic rather than dogmatic; 
also the work of developing the dramatic instinct 
of children can in most cases only be successfully 
done with small groups. Even if this should ne- 
cessitate a higher percentage of teachers to pupils 
than is now allowed, and of teachers specially 
trained for the work, we are sure that the greater 
cost of education will be more than compensated 
for by the beneficial results. 

Have we not a right to expect to see its effects 
in the next generation in a better sense of law and 
order, a finer, more disinterested type of public 
service? Surely the function of the school is not 
only to utilize the dramatic instinct in the cur- 
riculum, but, by means of it, to train the faculty 
of criticism and appreciation, so as to produce a 
reaction against all degenerate tastes, and to work 
toward the general uplifting of public morals. 



I 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Adams, John. Herbartian Psychology applied to Educa- 
tion. Ibister, London, 1897. 284 pp. 

BuRNHAM, William H. The Hygiene of Drawing. (Treats 
of motor expressions of emotion.) Ped. Sem., Sept. 
1907, vol. 14, pp. 289-304. 

HiRN, Yrjo. The Origins of Art. Macmillan Co., New 
York, 1900. 331 pp. 

HoRNE, Herman H. The Philosophy of Education. 
(Chapter on Psychological Aspects of Education.) 
Macmillan Co., New York, 1904. 295 pp. 

HoRNE, Herman H. Psychological Principles of Edu- 
cation. Macmillan Co., New York, 1906. 435 pp. 

II 

Bartlett, Maud 0. An investigation of the Influence 
of Moving Pictures upon Children. Child Welfare Mag., 
Feb. 1914, vol. 8, pp. 244-45. 

Curtis, E. W. The Dramatic Instinct in Education. 
(Statistics of frequency of theater-attendance among 
children.) Ped. Sem., Sept. 1908, vol. 15, pp. 301-11. 

FuLK, Joseph R. The Effect on Education and Morals 
of the Moving-Picture Shows. (Deals with the attend- 
ance at moving-picture shows of children in Nebraska.) 
Nat. Educ. Assoc. Proc, 191 2, pp. 460-61. 

Ill 

Davidson, Thomas. The Place of Art in Education. 
Jour, of Soc. Sci., Sept. 1886, vol. 21, pp. 159-87. 

225 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Davis, Hartley. The Play and the Public. Outlook, 
Nov. 1911, vol. 99, pp. "j^i'-j-TS- 

Flower, B. O. The Theater as a Potential Factor for 
Higher Civilization and a Typical Play Illustrating its 
Power. Arena, May, 1907, vol. 37, pp. 497-509. 

Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 439-42. 

Hamilton, Clayton. The Psychology of Theater Au- 
diences. Forum, Oct.-Dec. 1907, vol. 39, pp. 
234-48. 

Heywood, Thomas. An Apology for Actors. (With Gos- 
son's School of Abuse.) From edition of 161 2 compared 
with that of W. Cartwright. Shakespeare Society, 
London, 1841, 66 pp. 

Jones, Henry Arthur. The Foundations of a National 
Drama. No. Amer. Rev., Nov. 1907, vol. 186, pp. 

384-93. 
Klein, Charles. The Psychology of the Drama; its 
Effects on Character. Reader, Mar. 1906, vol. 7, pp. 

374-77. 

Klein, Charles. Religion, Philosophy, and the Drama. 
Arena, May, 1907, vol. 37, pp. 492-97. 

Lawson, R. The Evolution of the Drama. Gentleman's 
Mag., Apr. 1900, vol. 288, pp. 362-77. 

Partridge, William Ordway. Relation of the Drama 
to Education. Jour, of Soc. Sci., Sept. 1886. Trans- 
actions of the Amer. Assoc, no. 21, pp. 188-206. 

Patten, Simon Nelson. Product and CUmax. B. W. 
Huebsch, New York, 1909, pp. 45-48. 

Phillips, Rev. Thomas. The Nation's Morals. The 
Relation of the Theater to PubHc Morals. Proc. of 
the Public Morals Conference, London, July, 1910, 

pp. 194-99. 
Root, Rev. Frederick Stanley. The Eductional Fea- 

226 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

tures of the Drama. Jour, of Soc. Sci., Dec. 1897, 
vol. 35, PP- 99-1 II- 
Stead, W. T. The Nation's Morals. The Relation of the 
Theater to Public Morals. Proc. of the Public Morals 
Conference, London, July, 1910, pp. 186-94. 

IV 

Abbott, Christabel. Dramatic Training in the Normal 

Schools of New York. Education, Oct. 1911, vol. 32, 

pp. 99-104. 
Chancellor, William E. Class Teaching and Manage- 
ment. Harper & Bros., New York, 1910, pp. 16-17. 
Dodge, Daniel Kilham. The National Drama and 

University Towns. Nation, Dec. 7, 1905, vol. 81, 

p. 462. 
Dryer, Mabel E. The Making of a School Play. Elem. 

School Teacher, Apr. 1908, vol. 8, pp. 423-36. 
Ellis, A. Caswell. The Relation of the Nation's Social 

Ideals to its Educational System. Ped. Sem., Mar. 

1908, vol. 15, pp. 170-85. 
FiNLAY- Johnson, Harriet. The Dramatic Method of 

Teaching. James Nisbet & Co., London, 1911. 256 pp. 
Flemming, Martha. The Making of a School Play. 

Elem. School Teacher, Sept. 1907, vol. 8, pp. 15-23. 
GoPFLOT, F. V. Le Theatre au college du moyen age 

a nos jours. Champion, Paris, 1907. 336 pp. 
Merrill, Katherine. The Art of Drama in Colleges. 

Education, Mar. 1906, vol. 26, pp. 419-29. 
Moses, Montrose J. American Professors of Dramatic 

Literature. Independent, Oct. 12, 1911, vol. 71, pp. 

813-16. 
PuRCELL, Helen Elizabeth. Children's Dramatic In- 
terest and How This May Be UtiHzed in Education. 

Elem. School Teacher, May, 1907, vol. 7, pp. 510-18. 
227 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Scott, Colin. Social Education. Ginn & Co., Boston, 

1908, p. 115. 
Sheldon, Eleanor. Drama and the Schools. Sewanee 

Rev., Jan. 191 2, vol. 20, pp. 65-75. 
Stuart, Donald Clive. The Endowed Theater and the 

University. No. Amer. Rev., Nov. 191 1, vol. 194, pp. 

760-64. 



BLtJMNER, Dr. Rudolf. Kind und Schaubiihne. Das 
Buch vom Kinde, Band I. (II. Die Erziehung.) Ed. 
by Adele Schreiber. B. G. Trubner, Leipzig, 1907, pp. 
103-09.^ 

Compayre, Jules Gabriel. Les Adolescents au Theatre. 
L'Educateur Modeme, Jan. 1909, vol. 4, pp. 3-14. 

Ernst, Otto. Die Volkesunterhaltung. I. Jahrgang, 
Feb. 1899, pp. 35-37- 

Herts, Alice Minnie. Dramatic Instinct. Its Use and 
Misuse. Fed. Sem., Dec. 1908, vol. 15, pp. 550-62. 

Herts, Alice Minnie. The Children's Educational Thea- 
ter. Atlantic Mo., Dec. 1907, vol. 100, pp. 798-806. 

Herts, Alice Minnie. The Children's Educational 
Theater. (Introduction by Charles W. EHot.) Har- 
per & Bros., New York, 1911. 150 pp. 

Herts, Alice Minnie. The Fower of the Dramatic In- 
stinct. Outlook, June, 1912, vol. loi, pp. 492-95. 

Israels, Belle Linder. Another Aspect of the Chil- 
dren's Theater. Charities and Commons, Jan. 4, 1908, 
vol. 19, pp. 1310-11. 

Jenison, Madge C. A Hull House Flay. Atlantic Mo., 
July, 1906, vol. 98, pp. 83-92. 

Kannsen, Dr. Hans. Schauspielkunst und Kinder- 
komodie. Allgemeine Deutsche Lehrerzeitung, Sept. 
10, 1909, vol. 61, pp. 449-51- 
228 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

LQwENFELD, Raphael. Schiilervorstellungen. Das Buch 

vom Kinde, Band I. (II. Die Erziehung.) Ed. by Adele 

Schreiber. B. G. Trubner, Leipzig, 1907, pp. no-13. 
Matzdorf, Paul. Theatralische Auffiihrungen mit 

Schiilkindern. Jugendschriften-Warte, Apr. 1906, 

Jahrgang 14, p. 15. 
McCracken, Elizabeth. The Play and the Gallery. 

Atlantic Mo., Apr. 1902, vol. 89, pp. 497-507. 
Morris, Mrs. George Spencer. The Educational 

Value of the Drama. Child Welfare, Sept. 1913, vol. 8, 

pp. 14-15. 
Morse, Willlam Northrop. The Educational Theater. 

Outlook, July II, 1910, vol. 89, pp. 572-8. 
Moses, J. Garpield. The Children's Theater. Charities 

and Commons, Apr. 6, 1907, vol. 18, pp. 23-24. 
OsBORN, Dr. Max. (Report of Lecture.) Kindertheater, 

Zeits. fiir Pad. Psy., Pathol, und Hygiene, Dec. 1904, 

Jahrgang 6, pp. 480-81. 
Peixotto, Sidney S. The Ideal Dramatics for a Boys' 

Club (Sixth Paper). Charities and Commons, Oct. 3, 

1908, vol. 21, pp. 64-66. 
Rachel, Susanna. Antwort auf die Anfrage wegen so- 

genantes Schulerverstellungen. Die Lehrerin, Dec. 

1907, Jahrgang 24, pp. 348-49- 

Von Wildenbruch, Ernst. The Evolution of the Ger- 
man Drama. Forum, May- July, 1898, vol. 25, pp. 
375-84; 639-40. 

Wallace, Charles Wm. The Children of the Chapel at 
Blackfriars. Reprint, from Univ. of Nebraska Studies, 

1908. 207 pp. 

VI 

Abel, P. Knabenspiele auf Neu-Mecklenburg. (Sud- 
see.) Anthropos, 1907, vol. 2, pp. 219-29. 

229 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Archibald, George Hamilton. The Power of Play. 
Discussion on the Place and Power of Play in Child- 
Culture. Andrew Melrose, London, 1905. 123 pp. 

Babcock, W. H. Games of Washing Children. Amer. 
Anthropologist, July, 1888, vol. i, pp. 243-84. 

CoLOZZA, G. A. Psychologic und Padagogik des Kinder- 
spiels. Mit einer Einleitung von N. Fornelli. Oskar 
Bonde, Altenburg, 1900. 272 pp. 

CuLiN, Stuart. Hawaiian Games. Amer. Anthropologist, 
Apr. 1899 N.S., vol. I, pp. 201-47. 

Gardner, Fletcher. Some Games of Philippine Chil- 
dren. Jour, of Amer. Folk-Lore, Apr.-June, 1907, 
vol. 20, pp. 119-20. 

Gomme, Alice Bertha. A Dictionary of British Folk- 
Lore; the Traditional Games of England, Scotland 
and Ireland. David Nutt, London, 1898. 492 pp. 

Groos, Karl. The Play of Anunals. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1898. 341 pp. 

Groos, ICarl. The Play of Man. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1901. 412 pp. 

GuLiCK, Luther A. Some Physical Aspects of Muscular 
Exercise. Pop. Sci. Mo., Oct. 1898, vol. 53, pp. 793- 
805. 

GuTSMUTHS, JoHANN Christoph Friedrich. Spicle zur 
Uebimg und Erholung des Korpers und Geistes, fiir 
die Jugend. 2d. ed. Schnepfenthal, 1796. 492 pp. 

Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1904, vol. i, pp. 202-11. 

Hall, G. Stanley. The Story of a Sand-Pile. Kellogg 
Co., New York, 1897. 20 pp. Reprint, from Scribner's 
Mag., June, 1888, vol. 3, pp. 690-96. 

Hughes, James L. The Educational Value of Play and 
the Recent Play-Movement in Germany. Educ. Rev., 
Nov. 1894, vol. 8, pp. 327-36. 

230 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hughes, James L. Froebel's Educational Laws for All 
Teachers. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1899. 296 
pp. 

Johnson, George E. Education by Plays and Games. 
Ginn & Co., Boston, 1907. 234 pp. 

Johnson, George E. Play in Physical Education. 
Amer. Physical Educ. Rev., Sept. 1898, vol. 3, pp. 
179-87. 

Kjdd, Dudley. Savage Childhood. A Study of Kaffir 
Children. Adam & Chas. Black, London, 1906. (Chap- 
ter on Play, pp. 161-84.) 

Lee, Joseph. Playground Education. Educ. Rev., Dec. 
1901, vol. 22, pp. 449-71. 

Lindsay, Judge Benj. B. Public Playgroimds and Juve- 
nile DeHnquency. Independent, Aug. 20, 1908, vol. 
65, pp. 421-23. 

Mero, Everett B. {Ed) Playgroimds. Amer. Gym- 
nasium Co., Boston, 1908. 270 pp. 

Mosso, Angelo. Psychic Processes and Muscular Exer- 
cise. Clark Univ. Decennial Pub., 1899, pp. 383-95. 

MuNROE, Will S. Play Interests of Children. Nat. Educ. 
Assoc. Proc, 1899, pp. 1084-90. 

QuEYRAT, F. Les jeux des enfants. ifitudes sur 1 'imagi- 
nation creatrice chez Tenfant. Paris, 1905. 161 pp. 

Stow, George W. The Native Races of South Africa. 
(Games of Bushmen.) Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 
London, 1905, pp. 97-98. 

Walker, F. R. Sioux Games. Jour, of Amer. Folk-Lore, 
Oct.-Dec. 1905, vol. 18, pp. 277-90. 

See also Articles in Charities and the Commons, 1906-07. 

Playground Assoc, of Amer. Third Annual Congress. 

(Report of the Committee on a Normal Course in Play.) 

Pub. by the Assoc. New York, Aug. 1909, vol. 3, 

no. 3. 

231 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Jahrbuch fiir Volks- und Jugendspiele. B. G. Trub- 
ner, Leipzig und Berlin, 1892. 

VII 

Baron, A. Lettres et entretiens sur la dance ancienne, 
moderne, religieuse, civile et theatrale. Dondey- 
Dupre pere et fils, Paris, 1824. 344 pp. 

DoDSWORTH, Allen. Dancing and its Relation to Edu- 
cation and Social Life. Harper & Bros., New York, 
1900. 302 pp. 

Flitch, J. E. Crawford. Modern Dancing and Dancers. 
Grant Richards, London, 191 2. 228 pp. 

Grove, Mrs. Lilly (and others). Dancing. Longmans, 
Green & Co., London, 1901. 454 pp. 

Gulick, Luther. The Healthful Art of Dancing. Dou- 
bleday, Page & Co., New York, 1910. 273 pp. 

Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1904, vol. i, pp. 212-16. 

Hall, G. Stanley. Educational Problems. D. Apple- 
ton & Co., New York, 191 1, 2 vols. (Vol. i, chapter 
on Value of Dancing and Pantomime, pp. 42-90.) 

Holt, Arden. How to Dance the Revived Ancient 
Dances. Horace Cox, London, 1907. 158 pp. 

Israels, Belle Linder. The Way of the Girl. (Amuse- 
ment Resources.) Survey, July 3, 1909, vol. 22, pp. 
486-97. 

Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile. The Eurhythmies of Jaques- 
Dalcroze. (Introduction by Prof. M. E. Sadler.) Con- 
stable & Co., London, 19 10. 64 pp. 

Lincoln, Jeanette E. Carpenter. May-Pole Possibili- 
ties. Amer. Gymnasia Co., Boston, 1907. 56 pp. 

Roberts, Mary F. The Dance of the Future as illus- 
trated by Isadora Duncan. Craftsman, Oct. 1908, 
vol. 15, pp. 48-56. 

232 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Sears, Charles H. A. Contribution to the Psychology 
of Rhythm. Amer. Jour, of Psy., Jan. 1902, vol. 13, 
pp. 28-61. 

St. Johnston, Reginald. A History of Dancing. Sim- 
kin, Marshall & Co., London, 1906, 127 pp. 

Stow, George W. The Native Races of South Africa. 
(Dances of Bushmen.) Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 
London, 1905, pp. 11 1-24. 

Urlin, Ethel L. Dancing, Ancient and Modern. Her- 
bert and Daniel, London, 191 2. 182 pp. 

VIII 

Ballard, Susan (tr.). Fairy Tales from Far Japan. The 
Religious Tract Society, London, 1908. 147 pp. 

BouRHiLL, Mrs. E. J. and Drake, Mrs. J. B. (eds.). 
Fairy Tales from South Africa. Macmillan & Co., 
London, 1908. 250 pp. 

Bryant, Sara Cone. How To Tell Stories to Children. 
Houghton Miffin Co., Boston, 1905. 260 pp. 

Bryant, Sara Cone. Stories to Tell Children. Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1907. 243 pp. 

Catty, Nancy. The Multitude of Stories: an Expos- 
tulation. Child Life, Mar. 15, 1910, vol. 12, pp. 
79-80. 

Crocker, T. Crofton. Fairy Legends and Traditions 
of the South of Ireland. Ed. by T. Wright. Swan, 
Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1902. 352 pp. 

Delepierre, Octave. The Origin of Story-Telling. Bel- 
gravia, Nov. 1869, vol. 10, pp. 49-52. 

Earle, Lyell. The Short Story. Kindergarten Pri- 
mary Mag., Jan. 1909, vol. 21, pp. 115-20. 

FoRBUSH, WiLLLAM Byron. The Boy Problem. The 
Pilgrim Press, Boston, 1907, pp. 148-58. 

Hassler, Harriet E. Work with Children in Schools 

233 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

in Portland (Oregon) Public Library. Library Jour., 

Apr. 1905, vol. 30, pp. 214-17. 
Houghton, Louise S. Telling Bible Stories. Charles 

Scribner's Sons, New York, 1905. 286 pp. 
MacClintock, Mrs. Porter Lander. Literature in the 

Elementary Schools. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1907. 

305 PP- 
Partridge, Emelyn N. and George E. Story-telling in 

Home and School; a study in Educational aesthetics. 

Sturgis & Walton, New York, 1913. 323 pp. 
Phillips, W. S. Indian Fairy Tales. Star Pub. Co., 

Chicago, 1902. 326 pp. 
St. John, Edward Porter. Stories and Story-Telling in 

Moral and Rehgious Education. Pilgrim Press, Boston, 

1910. 100 pp. 
Shedlock, Marie. Dramatic Instinct in the Social Life 

of the Child. Soc. Ed. Quar., Jan. 1908, vol. i, pp. 

61-65. 
VosTROVSKi, Clara. A Study of Children's Reading 

Tastes. Ped. Sem., Dec. 1899, vol. 6, pp. 523-35. 
Ware, Allison. The Teacher as Story-Teller. San 

Francisco State Normal School Bulletin, no. 5 N.S., 

pp. 21-23. 
Wyche, Richard T. Some Great Stories and How to Tell 

Them. Newson & Co., New York, 1910. 181 pp. 
The Art of Fireside Story-Telling. Chambers' Jour., Feb. 

TQ, 1881, vol. 58, pp. 120-23. 
The Art of Story-Telling. Frazer's Mag., June, 1856, 

vol. 53, pp. 722-32. 
A Lost Art. Chambers' Jour., Dec. 22, 1883, vol. 60, 

pp. 801-03. 
Story-Telling to Children. Carnegie Library of Pitts- 
burg Mo. Bulletin, Dec. 1905, vol. 10, pp. 271-73, 



234 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



IX 



Clapp, Henry Lincoln. Moving-Picture Shows. Ed- 
ucation, June, 1 91 3, vol. 33, pp. 620-28. 

Collier, John. The Motion Picture. Proc. of the Child 
Conference for Research and Welfare, 19 10. G, E. 
Stechart & Co., New York, 1910, vol. 2, pp. 108-18. 

FuLK, Joseph R. The Effect on Education and Morals 
of the Moving-Picture Shows. Nat. Educ. Assoc. 
Proc, 191 2, pp. 456-61. 

Grau, Robert. The Moving-Picture Show and Living 
Drama. Amer. Rev. of Rev., Mar. 191 2, vol. 45, pp. 
329-36. 

Helming, O. C. The Moving Pictures in the Sunday 
School. Independent, July 31, 1913, vol. 35, pp. 277- 

78. 

HoLLiDAY, Carl. The Motion Picture and the Church. 

Independent, Feb. 13, 1913, vol. 74, pp. 353-56. 
Ives, W. H. School Facilities for Instruction by Motion 

Pictures. Nat. Educ. Assoc. Proc, i9i2,pp. 1230-35. 
Johnson, William Allen. The Moving-Picture Show, 

the New Form of Drama for the Millions. Munsey, 

Aug. 1909, vol. 41, pp. 633-40. 
Kallen, Horace M. The Dramatic Picture versus The 

Pictorial Drama: A Study of the Influences of the 

Cinematograph on the Stage. Harvard Mo., Mar. 

1910, vol. 50, pp. 22-31. 
Palmer, Lewis E. The World in Motion. Survey, June 

5, 1909, vol. 22, pp. 355-65- 
Steele, Asa. The Moving-Picture Show. World's Work, 

Feb. 191 1, vol. 21, pp. 14018-32. 
Talbot, Frederick A. Moving Pictures: How they are 

made and Worked. William Heinemann, London, 



1912. 340 pp. 



235 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

TwoMBLY, Rev. Clifford G. A Study of the Values and 

Dangers of the Moving-Picture Show. Penn. School 

Jour., Dec. 191 1, vol. 60, pp. 241-47. 
Censorship for Moving Pictures. Survey, Apr. 3, 1909, 

vol. 22, pp. 8-9. 
Moving Pictures in Medicine, Literary Digest, Dec. 24, 

1910, vol. 41, p. 1194- 
Surgical Instruction by Cinematograph, Literary Digest, 

Jan. 29, 1910, vol. 40, p. 185. 
See also Articles in Moving-Picture News. 



Jacob, Georg. Erwannungen des Schattentheaters in 

der Welt-Literatur. Mayer & Miiller, Berlin, 1906. 

49 pp. 
Jackson, Mrs. F. Neville. Toys of Other Days. Chas. 

Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908. 309 pp. 
Lowenfeld, Raphael. Kasperle-Theater. Die Volks- 

unterhaltung, Okt.-Nov. 1901. Jahrgang III. pp. 

89-91. 
Magnin, Charles. Histoire des marionnettes en Europe 

depuis I'antiquite jusqu' a nos jours. M. Levy freres, 

Paris, 1862. 356 pp. 
Maindron, Ernest. Marionnettes et Guignols. Felix 

Juven, Paris, 1887. 38 pp. 
Najac, Raoul de. Petite traite de pantomime. H. 

Hennuyer, Paris, 1887. 49 pp. 
De Nettville, Lemercier. Histoire anecdotique des 

marionnettes modernes. Calmann Levy, Paris, 1892. 

306 pp. 
Pollock, Walter H. Punch and Judy. Saturday Rev., 

May 19, 1900, vol. 89, pp. 612-13. 
Rehm, Hermann Siegfried. Das Buch der Marionetten. 

Ernst Frensdorff, Berlin, 1905. 307 pp. 

236 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Russell, Ernest. The Most Popular Play in the World. 

Outing, Jan. 1908, vol. 51, pp. 463-79. 
Walters, F. G. Marionette Memoirs. Gentleman's 

Mag., Dec. 1888, vol. 265 N.S., pp. 578-84. 
Warsage, Rudolphe de. Histoire du celebre theatre 

liegeois de marionettes. G. Van Oest & Co., Bruxelles, 

1905. 148 pp. 
WuNDT, Wm. Volkerpsychologie. Leipzig, 1905, vol. 2, 

pp. 486-95. 
ZiEGLER, Francis J. Harper's Mag., Dec. 1897, vol. 96, 

pp. 85-91. 
Marionettes. Sat. Rev., June 23, 1888, vol. 65, pp. 756-57. 
Puppet Shows. Sat. Rev., Mar. 14, 1885, vol. 59, pp. 

340-41. 

XI 

Bates, Esther Willard. Pageants and Pageantry. 

(Introduction by William Orr.) Ginn & Co., Boston, 

1912. 294 pp. 
BjORKMAN, F. M. A Nation Learning to Play. World's 

Work, Sept. 1909, vol. 18, pp. 12038-45. 
Carrol, Mechalena. A Play Festival of the Seventh 

Grade. Elem. School Teacher, Oct. 1908, vol. 9, pp. 

76-83. 
Childs, Harriet Lush. Old Deerfield Historical Pag- 
eant. Survey, Aug. 6, 1910, vol. 24, pp. 461-65. 
Chubb, Percival (and associates). Festivals and Plays 

in Schools and Elsewhere. Harper & Bros., New York, 

1912. 402 pp. 
Craig, Anne A. T. The Dramatic Festival. (Foreword 

by Percival Chubb; Introduction by Peter A. Dykema.) 

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 191 2. 363 pp. 
Emmons, Myra. Pageantry for Children. Outlook, July, 

191 1, vol. 98, pp. 659-64. 

237 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Foster, Paul Pinxerton. Reviving the Elizabethan 
Pageant. World To-Day, Aug. 1908, vol. 15, pp. 827-33. 

Hard, William. The Old West in Pageant. Outlook, 
Jan. 22, 1910, vol. 94, pp. 182-90. 

Mackaye, Percy. American Pageants and their Prom- 
ise. Scribner's Mag., July, 1909, vol. 46, pp. 28-34. 

Mackaye, Hazel. Out-Door Plays and Pageants. In- 
dependent, June 2, 1910, vol. 68, pp. 1227-34. 

Maercklein, Berdette C. Historic Pageants and 
Spectacles Enacted at Hartford during the Great 
Bridge Fete. New England Mag., Dec. 1908, vol. 45, 
pp. 427-33. 

Maxwell, Gerald. Revival of the Folk Drama. Nine- 
teenth Cent., Dec. 1907, vol. 62, pp. 925-34. 

Morris, May. Pageantry and the Masque. (Abstract.) 
Jour. Soc. of Arts, June 27, 1902, vol. 50, pp. 670-77. 

Parker, Louis N. Historical Pageants. Jour. Soc. of 
Arts, Dec. 22, 1905, vol. 54, pp. 142-46. 

Paul, J. Balfour. Processions. The Scottish Rev., 
Oct. 1897, vol. 30, pp. 217-35. 

Pollard, Alfred W. Early English Miracle Plays, 
MoraHties and Interludes. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 
1909. 250 pp. 

Roberts, Mary F. The Value of Out-Door Play to 
America. Craftsman, Aug. 1909, vol. 16, pp. 491-509. 

Sharp, Thomas. Dissertation on the Pageants or Dra- 
matic Mysteries. (Review.) The Retrospective Rev., 
1826, vol. 13, pp. 297-316. 

SiEVEKiNG, I. Geberne. EugHsh Pageants of the Streets. 
Antiquar>% Dec. 1905, vol. 42, pp. 464-68. 

Sullivan, Oscar M. An All Hallows' Day Festival. 
Children's Charities, Apr. 1910, vol. 17, pp. 11-12. 

TuRNBALL, George. EngHsh Historical Pageants. 
World's Work, Dec. 1907, vol. 15, pp. 9659-74. 

238 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Pageants. Macmillan's Mag., Oct. 1905, vol. 92, pp. 

452-58. 
The Place of Pageantry in National Thought. Spectator, 

Jan. 16, 1904, vol. 92, pp. 81-2. 
The Return of the Drama to Nature. Current Lit. Sept. 

1909, vol. 47, pp. 312-15. 
See also Articles in Outlook, 1908-12. 



INDEX 



Actors, children as, 73-90. 

Adams Nervine Asylum, Ja- 
maica Plain, 145. 

Addams, Jane, 26, 34. 

Arithmetic, dramatic teaching of, 
52. 

Baker, Professor G. P., 56. 

Ballets, 116. 

Bavarian Jubilee Exhibition, 190. 

Ben Greet Company, 54, 66. 

Berlin, theaters in, 60, 62; chil- 
dren's theater in, 87, 88. 

Bible, the, dancing referred to in, 
112. 

Bill-boards, 36. 

Bliimner, Dr. Rudolf, 90; quoted 
on children and the theater, 65 . 

Boston, dancing in schools of, 121, 
122. 

Boy Scouts, 102. 

Boys, associations for, loi, 102. 

Boys' Brigade, the, loi. 

Bremen, classic plays given in, 61. 

Brotherhood of David, associa- 
tion for boys, loi. 

Bryn Mawr, dramatic study at, 
56. 

Burr, Professor, 142, 

Bury St, Edmunds pageant, 202. 

California, University of, dra- 
matics at, 54, 56. 

Canton, WiUiam, cited, 100. 

Casparl, and Papa Schmid, 189, 
190. 



Censoring of plays, 68, 69, 169- 
72. 

Cercle Frangais of Harvard Uni- 
sity, influence of, in theatricals, 
54- 

Champlain, Lake, pageant of, 204, 
205. 

Chancellor, W. E., quoted on 
play-acting, 50, 51. 

Chicago, theater-going of children 
in, 8, 9, 14-21, 26, 34; dancing 
in schools of, 122. 

Children, importance of emotional 
natvire of, 3, 4; strength of 
emotional nature of, 5 ; theater- 
going of, 5-24; the class of 
plays attended by, 9; the sort 
of acts that appeal to, 10-13; 
effect of theater-going upon, 
14-16; play -giving by, 16-21; 
means by which they gain en- 
trance to theaters, 25, 26; ef- 
fect of different plays upon, 
31-33; and dramatic work in 
schools, 38-53; dramatic pro- 
visions for, in Germany, 60- 
65, 87, 88; theaters for, 73-90; 
as actors, 73-90; plays of, 89; 
of primitive peoples, games of, 
92, 93; of civilized peoples, 
games of, 93-95; deUnquent, 
play for, 106, 107; crime among, 
lessened by playgrounds, 107; 
love to invent, 148, 149. 

Children's Educational Theater, 
New York, 73-86. 



241 



INDEX 



Child-Study, 2, 3. 

China, puppet and shadow plays 
in, 178-80. 

Cicero, 91. 

Cinematograph. See Moving pic- 
tures. 

Colleges, dramatic work in, 53-59; 
women's, dancing in, 124-26. 

Commedia deW Arte, 183, 184. 

Composition, dramatic teaching 
of, 52. 

Cornell University, dramatic 
study at, 56. 

Crawford, Carohne, 120. 

Crime, depicted on the stage, 34; 
playgrounds a means of lessen- 
ing, 107; and moving-pictures, 
171-74. 

Dalcroze, Jaques, 126. 

Dance-halls, 128, 129. 

Dance-songs, 1 13-15. 

Dancing, 110-34; defined, no; 
early important role of, no, 
in; early association with re- 
ligion, 111-13 ; peasant and folk, 
1 13-15; church, 115; revival of 
old forms of, 117, 118; benefi- 
cial results of, 11 7-19; folk, 
criticism of, 119, 120; introduc- 
tion of, in public schools, 121- 
23; folk, value of, 123, 124; in 
women's colleges, 124-26; em- 
ployment of, by social settle- 
ments, 126, 127; in churches, 
127; in insane asylums, 127; 
and dance-halls, 128, 129; stage, 
129; interpretative, new school 
of, 129-34. 

Deerfield pageant, 205, 206. 

Denison House, Boston, 73. 

Drama, original connection with 



religion, 30; moral eflFect of, for 
good or for evil, 31-33; to be 
read dramatically, 43 ; study of, 
in colleges and universities, 55- 
59; good, constructive efforts 
to provide, 60-90; efforts of 
social settlements to provide, 
70-73. See Plays. 

Drama League of America, 68. 

Drama League of New York, 69. 

Dramatic element in games, 94, 
95- 

Dramatic enter taiimient, psycho- 
logical aspects of, 25-37. 

Dramatic games, of primitive 
children, 92, 93; of civihzed 
children, 93-95. 

Dramatic instinct, a prime force 
in dviUzation, i; exploiting of, 
2; recent efforts to develop it 
in children, 2, 4; of value in 
awakening right sentiments in 
children, 4; a demand for the 
expression of personahty, 27; 
revealed in children's games, 
92-95; how to train, 217-24. 

Dramatic work in schools and 
colleges, 38-59. 

Dramatization, in primary schools, 
38-42; in higher grades, 42-53; 
has gripped hard the peda- 
gogic world, 217; value of, as 
tool of pedagogy, 223. 

Dresden, classic plays given in, 61. 

Driessen, Dr. Otto, 159. 

Duncan, Isadora, 130-33. 

Education, should begin with di- 
rection of children's sports, 102. 

Educational AlUance, The, 74, 84. 

Eliot, C. W., on emotional na- 
tiure of children, 3, 4. 



242 



INDEX 



Elizabeth Peabody Settlement, 
Boston, 73. 

Ellis, A. Caswell, quoted on play- 
acting, 49. 

Emotion, ways in which it seeks 
outlet, I, 2. 

England, dramatization in schools 
of, 51; mimicipal playgrounds 
in, 104; dancing in, 114, 115, 
117, 118; puppet show in, 187, 
188. 

Fairy-tales, dramatized, 63. 
Folk-dances, 113-15, 118-24, 127. 
Forbush, Dr., loi. 
Foster, Judge W. W., 34. 
France, dramatic work in schools 

of, 49; open playgrounds in, 

104; dancing in, 116; puppet 

play in, 185-87. 
Funerals, children's interest in 

enacting, 99. 

Games, of primitive peoples, 92, 

93 ; of civilized children, 93-95 ; 

dramatic elements in, 94, 95; 

progressive courses of, 95-97. 

See Plays. 
Genee, AdeUne, 129. 
Geography, dramatic teaching of, 

52. 
Germany, theatricals in, 60-65; 

direction of children's sports in, 

102; peasant-dancing in, 114; 

puppet show in, 188-91. 
Glenn, Helen, 144. 
Goethe, 189. 
I Gomme, Mrs., 98. 

Greece, ancient, dancing in, iii, 

112. 
Greenwich House Settlement, 

119. 



Guessing games, 95. 
Guignol Theater, 186. 

Hall, G. Stanley, on emotional 

nature of children, 3. 
Hamburg, classic plays given in, 

61. 
Hartford pageant, 203, 204. 
Harvard University, dramatics at, 

53, 54; play- writing at, 56; 

Joan of Arc given at, 209. 
Haydn, Joseph, 189. 
Hendrik-Hudson festival, 207. 
Henry Street Settlement, New 

York, 73. 
Herts, Minnie, 75. 
History, dramatic teaching of, 52. 
Horace, quoted, 177. 
Hxill House, 71, 72, 126, 127. 

Imagination, 100, 149. 

Imitation, children's plays in- 
volving, 95-97, 99, 100. 

India, dancing in, 113. 

Interpretative dancing, 129-34. 

Israels, Mrs. Charles, 128. 

Italy, and playgroimds, 104; pup- 
pet play in, 183-85. 

Jacob, Dr. George, 191. 
James, WilHam, quoted, 95, 
Japan, puppet plays in, 182. 
Japanese story -telling, 135. 
Jenison, Madge, cited, 72. 
Juvenile crime, 107. 
Juvenile Protective Association 

of Chicago, 167, 169. 
Juvenile Protective League of 

Chicago, 108. 

Katharsis, 2, 29. 
Kidd, Dudley, 9a. 
Knights of King Arthur, asso- 
ciation for boys, loi. 



243 



INDEX 



Laughter, 193, 194. 

Lee, Joseph, 98. 

Letter- writing, dramatic teaching 
of, 52. 

Librarians, 143. 

Libraries, 142, 143. 

Licensers of plays, 35-37. 

Literature, dramatic teaching of, 
52. 

"London Bridge," dramatic ele- 
ments in, 94. 

Lord Mayor's show, 199. 

Lowenfeld, Raphael, quoted on 
children and the theater, 63-65. 

MacDowell Club of New York, 
69. 

Macmillan, Dr. D. P., 25, 26. 

Manual training, dramatic teach- 
ing of, 53. 

Mardi Gras, 199. 

Marionette plays, 176-95; origin 
of, 176, 177; in various coun- 
tries, 177-91; value of, 191-95. 

Masquerading, of primitive peo- 
ples, 92. 

Masques, 198. 

Maypole dance, 115, 120, 121. 

McClintock, Mrs. Porter Lander, 
quoted, 140. 

McCracken, EUzabeth, her Play 
and the Gallery, 31, 32. 

Mimicry, 92, 93. 

Minnesota, University, dramatic 
instruction at, 56. 

Miracle plays, 196, 197. 

Morris, the, 114, 115. 

Moving pictures, 6, 12, 13, 21, 
153-75; phenomenal develop- 
ment of, 153-56; moral quality 
of, 156-58, 168-74; educational 
and scientific sides of, 158; fac- 



tors which make for popularity 
of, 164, 165; price of, 164; criti- 
cisms of, 165-67; psychological 
effect of, 174, 175. 

Munich, municipal theater for 
children in, 176; Papa Schmid's 
puppet theater in, 189. 

Mimicipal playgrounds, 103, 104; 
dance-halls, 128, 129; theater 
for children, 176. 

Mystery plays, 30, 115. 

National Playground Associa- 
tion, 103, 119. 

Nature study, dramatic teaching 
of, 53- 

New York City, School Commit- 
tee of, action on the theater in 
connection with schools, 70; 
dancing in schools of, 123. 

Normal course in play, 103. 

Nurses, 145. 

Ohio, State University of, play- 
giving at, 54. 
Oxford pageant, 202, 203. 

Pageant, the word, 197. 

Pageantry, 196-216; origin of, 
196; occasions of, 197-200; 
recent revival of, 200-10; in 
schools, 210, 211 ; in settlements, 
211, 212; fvmction of, 212-16. 

Palmer, Miss Luella, 98. 

Papa Schmid, 189-92. 

Peasant dances, 113-16. 

Peixotto, Sidney S., 86. 

Pennsylvania, University of, play- 
giving at, 54. 

People's Institute, the, 65-68. 

Pierce School, BrookUne, Mass., 
dramatics in, 50. 



244 



INDEX 



Plato, 91, 102. 

Play, 91-109; definitions and end 
of, 91 ; data for study of, 91 ; of 
primitive peoples, 92, 93 ; of civ- 
ilized children, 93-95; super- 
vision of, 105, 108; sometimes 
need of fostering spirit of, 105 ; 
for defectives and delinquent 
children, 106, 107. See Games. 

Play-giving, by children, 16-21, 
38 ; in schools, 38-53 ; in colleges 
and imiversities, 53-59. 

Playgrounds, mimicipal, 103, 104; 
means of lessening crime, 107; 
and story-teUing, 145, 146. 

Plays, the sort attended by chil- 
dren, 9 ; as taught in schools, 29 ; 
effect of, on children, 31-33; 
licensing of, 35-37; progressive 
courses of, 95-97 ; German, sort 
adapted to children, 62, 63; 
censoring of, by organizations, 
68, 69; and social settlements, 
70-73; marionette or puppet, 
176-95; shadow, 177-83; sack, 
180; miracle, 196, 197. See 
Drama, Games. 

Play-writing, in colleges and vmi- 
versities, 56. 

Polichinelle, 184, 186. 

Providence, R. I., theater-going 
of children in, 8, 14-21 ; dancing 
in schools of, 122. 

Psychological aspects of dramatic 
entertainment, 25-37. 

Puffer, J. Adams, 26. 

Pulcinella, 184. 

Punch, 176, 184. 

Puppet plays, 176-95. See Mari- 
onette plays. 

"Puss in the Comer," dramatic 
dements in, 94. 



Rehm, Herr, quoted, 180-82. 
Religion, and the drama, 30; early 

association of dancing with, 

III-I3- 
Revels, 198. 
Rhythm, no. 
Riis, Jacob, 98. 
Romans, dancing among, 112. 
Russia, peasant dancing in, 113. 

Sack plays, 180. 

Sand, George, 186. 

Saudeck, Robert, 63. 

Scandinavia, dance-songs in, 113. 

Schools, as developers of dra- 
matic and aesthetic sense, 29; 
dramatic work in, 38-53; in- 
troduction of dancing in, 121- 
23 ; story -telling in, 138-41 ; and 
puppet plays, 194; pageantry in, 
210, 211; the function of, 224. 

Seneca, 91. 

Seton, Ernest Thompson, loi. 

Shadow plays, 177-83. 

Sherborne pageant, 200, 201 . 

Siam, shadow plays in, 181, 182. 

Siegfried, Herr Pfarrer, 88. 

Signoret, Henri, 186. 

Sleeping Beauty, dramatic ele- 
ments in, 95. 

Smith, Charles Sprague, 65. 

Smith, Lieutenant W. M., loi. 

Smith College, dramatics at, 55. 

Social settlements, efforts to pro- 
vide good plays, 70-73 ; employ- 
ment of dancing by, 126, 127; 
story-telling in, 145; use of 
moving-pictures in, 162; and 
pageantry, 211, 212. 

Sompting Elementary School, 
Eng., play-acting in, 51-53- 

Spain, dancing in, 113, 114. 



245 



INDEX 



spectator, the, quoted, 187, 188. 

Stage-dancing, 129. 

Stock companies, 6. 

Stories, kinds of, 137, 138. 

Story Hour, The, 146. 

Story-hours, 142-45. 

Story -Tellers' League, 146. 

Story-telling, as part of therapy, 
144, 145; in settlements, 145; 
in playground movement, 145, 
146; criticisms of, 147-49; a- 
special gift, 149; training for, 
150; suggestions for, 150-52; in 
past times, and among primi- 
tive peoples, 135-37; attempt 
to correlate, with school stud- 
ies, 138, 139; advantages in, 
139-41; in churches, 141; in 
boys' clubs, 142; in hbraries, 
142, 143; as a profession, 143. 

Taste, vitiating of, 36, 37. 

Teachers, attitude toward drama- 
tization and play-giving in 
schools, 41, 42, 44-47. 

Teachers' associations, in Ger- 
many, 61 . 

Theaters, means by which chil- 
dren gain entrance to, 25, 26; 
meet a need, 27; to be rendered 
educationally effective, 27, 28; 
a dangerous force when left to 
themselves, 29; crime depicted 
in, 34; in Germany, 60H55; 
subsidized, 60; admission to, at 
reduced rates, 60-62, 66, 67, 70; 
for children, 73-90; moving- 
pictures, 167-69; mimicipal, 
for children, 176. 

Theater-going, of children, 5-24; 
reasons for increase in, 5-7; 
effect of, upon children, 14-16; 



attitude of German educators 
toward, 61. 

"Three Dukes," dramatic ele- 
ments in, 95. 

Tickets, theater, at reduced rates, 
60-62, 66, 67, 70. 

Tracey, Susan, 145. 

Trimnphs, Roman, 197. 

Tufts College, dramatic study at, 
56. 

Twain, Mark, quoted, 79. 

Twentieth Century Club, of Bos- 
ton, 68, 69, 172. 

United States, dancing in, 118- 

127. 
Universities, dramatic work in, 

53-59; pageantry used by, 

200, 209. 

Vaudeville shows, 6. 

Vitiation of taste, 36, 37. 

Von Klesheim, Baron Anton, 87. 

Wage-Earners' Theater Leagues, 
67, 68. 

Wellesley College, dramatics at, 
55; dancing at, 124-26. 

Winchester pageant, 201 . 

Women theater-goers, their lik- 
ing for the lurid, 35. 

Wood Craft Indians, association 
for boys, 101. 

Worcester, Mass., theater-going 
of children in, 8 ; paper written 
by school-girl in, 12, 13. 

World in Pageant, The, 208. 

Wundt, Professor, 192. 

Wyche, Mr., 146. 

Yale University, play-giving at, 
S4- 



\k 



-^ .y ^. l^. 











'45' 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



027 211 326 9 



%^ 






